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H.   DE    BALZAC 


THE   COMEDIE    HUMAINE 


DON'T   SAY   TOO    MUCH    ABOUT    HER,  MY    DEAR   FRIEND,  OR 
YOU    WILL    SPOIL    IT    ALL." 


H.    DE    BALZAC 


Muse  of  the  Department 
AND  Les  Employes 


TRANSLATED  BY 


JAMES    WARING 


WITH  A  PREFACE  BY 


GEORGE   SAINTSBURY 


^ 


PHILADELPHIA 

The  Gebbie  Publishing  Co.,  Ltd, 
1899 


•V; 


'9 


CONTENTS 


PAGB 

PREFACE ix 

THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT     .        .        .         .         i 
LES  EMPLOYES I95 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 


"  don't  say  too  much  about    her,  my  dear    friend,  or  you 

WILL  SPOIL  IT  all"   (p.   237)  ....        Frontispiece. 

PAGE 
"  IS    IT   TO    MONSIEUR    MILAUD    DE     LA    BAUDRAYE    THAT     I     HAVE 

THE    HONOR ?" .  ID 

HE   PERCEIVED  THAT  THERE  WAS   A   LITTLE   INTERVAL   OF  A 

HUNDRED     FEET      BETWEEN    THE      LOWEST      KNOT     AND     THE 
POINTED    ROCKS    BELOW  .  .  .  '  .  .  .  -69 

ONE  OF  THE  MINISTER'S  CARRIAGES  USED  TO  COME  FOR  DES 
LUPEAULX  AT  HALF-PAST  FOUR,  JUST  AS  HE  HIMSELF  WAS 
OPENING    HIS    UMBRELLA 264 

"A    WORD    OR    TWO    WITH    YOU,    MY    LORU"  ....      373 

Drawn  by  y.  Ay  ton  Symington. 


PREFACE. 

Although  "La  Muse  du  Departement  "  is  a  most  important 
work,  it  cannot  perhaps  be  spoken  of  in  unhesitating  terms. 
It  contains  indeed,  in  the  personage  of  Lousteau,  one  of  the 
very  most  elaborate  of  Balzac's  portraits  of  a  particular  type  of 
men  of  letters.  The  original  is  said  to  have  been  Jules  Janin, 
who  is  somewhat  disadvantageously  contrasted  here  and  else- 
where with  Claud  Vignon,  said  on  the  same  rather  vague 
authority  to  be  Gustave  Planche.  Both  Janin  and  Planche 
are  now  too  much  forgotten,  but  in  both  more  or  less  (and  in 
Lousteau  very  much  "  more  ")  Balzac  certainly  cannot  be  said 
to  have  dealt  mildly  with  his  d^^g  noire,  the  critical  tempera- 
ment. Lousteau,  indeed,  though  not  precisely  a  scoundrel,  is 
both  a  rascal  and  a  cad.  Even  Balzac  seems  a  little  shocked 
at  his  lettre  de  /aire  part  in  reference  to  his  mistress'  child  ; 
and  it  is  seldom  possible  to  discern  in  any  of  his  proceedings 
the  most  remote  approximation  to  the  conduct  of  a  gentleman. 
But,  then,  as  we  have  seen,  and  shall  see,  Balzac's  standard 
for  the  conduct  of  his  actual  gentlemen  was  by  no  means 
fantastically  exquisite  or  discouragingly  high,  and  in  the  case 
of  his  Bohemians  it  was  accommodating  to  the  utmost  degree. 
He  seems  to  despise  Lousteau,  but  rather  for  his  insouciance 
and  neglect  of  his  opportunities  of  making  himself  a  position 
than  for  anything  else. 

I  have  often  felt  disposed  to  ask  those  who  would  assert 
Balzac's  absolute  infallibility  as  a  gynaecologist  to  give  me  a 
reasoned  criticism  of  the  heroine  of  this  novel.  I  do  not 
entirely  "figure  to  myself"  Dinah  de  La  Baudraye.  It  is 
perfectly  possible  that  she  should  have  loved  a  "sweep"  like 
Lousteau;  there  is  certainly  nothing  extremely  unusual  in  a 
woman   loving  worse  sweeps  even  than  he.     But  would  she 

(ix) 


X  PREFACE. 

have  done  it,  and  having  done  it,  have  also  done  what  she 
did  afterward  ?  These  questions  may  be  answered  differently ; 
I  do  not  answer  thenfi  in  the  negative  myself,  but  I  cannot 
give  them  an  affirmative  answer  with  the  conviction  which  I 
should  like  to  show. 

Among  the  minor  characters,  the  subsiiiut  de  Chagny  has  a 
touch  of  nobility  which  contrasts  happily  enough  with  Lous- 
teau's  unworthiness.  Bianchon  is  as  good  as  usual :  Balzac 
always  gives  Bianchon  a  favorable  part.  Madame  Pi^defer  is 
one  of  the  numerous  instances  in  which  the  unfortunate  class 
of  mothers-in-law  atones  for  what  are  supposed  to  be  its  crimes 
against  the  human  race  ;  and  old  La  Baudraye,  not  so  hope- 
lessly repulsive  in  a  French  as  he  would  be  in  an  English 
novel,  is  a  shrewd  old  rascal  enough. 

But  I  cannot  think  the  scene  of  the  Parisians  blaguing  the 
Sancerrois  a  very  happy  one.  That  it  is  in  exceedingly  bad 
taste  might  not  matter  so  very  much ;  Balzac  would  reply, 
and  justly,  that  he  had  not  intended  to  represent  it  as  any- 
thing else.  That  the  fun  is  not  very  funny  may  be  a  matter 
of  definition  and  appreciation.  But  what  scarcely  admits  of 
denial  or  discussion  is  that  it  is  tyrannously  too  long.  The 
citations  of  "  Olympia  "  are  pushed  beyond  measure,  beyond 
what  is  comic,  almost  beyond  the  license  of  farce ;  and  the 
comments,  which  remind  one  rather  of  the  heavy  jesting  on 
critics  in  "  Un  Prince  de  la  Boheme "  and  the  short-lived 
"Revue  Parisienne,"  are  labored  to  the  last  degree.  The 
part  of  Nathan,  too,  is  difficult  to  appreciate  exactly,  and  al- 
together the  book  does  not  seem  to  me  a  reussite. 

"The  Muse  of  the  Department"  has  a  rather  compli- 
cated record.  It  appeared  at  first,  not  quite  complete  and 
under  the  title  of  "  Dinah  Piedefer,"  in  "  Le  Messager  "  dur- 
ing March  and  April  1843,  ^"^  ^^s  almost  immediately  pub- 
lished as  a  book,  with  works  of  other  writers,  under  the  general 
title  of  "  Les  Mystferes  de  Province,"  and  accompanied  by 
some  other  work  of  its  own  author's.     It  had  four  parts  and 


PREFACE.  xi 

fifty-two  chapters  in  "  Le  Messager,"  an  arrangement  which 
was  but  slightly  altered  in  the  volume  form.  M.  de  Loven- 
joul  gives  some  curious  indications  of  mosaic  work  in  it,  and 
some  fragments  which  do  not  now  appear  in  the  text. 

As  is  the  wont  of  Balzac's  collections  of  mixed  stories  (with 
the  possible  exception  of  the  wonderful  volume  which  opens 
with  "La  Recherche  de  I'Absolu"),  and  as  is  naturally  very 
often  the  case  with  collections  of  short  stories  in  general,  the 
volume  which  originally  began  with  "La  Maison  Nucingen  "* 
is  a  little  unequal.  One  of  its  contents,  "  Sarrasine,"  though 
powerful  in  its  way,  is  tarred  with  the  same  brush  of  morbid- 
ness which  stains  "  Une  Passion  dans  le  Desert"  and  "La 
Filleaux  Yeuxd'Or." 

The  other  contents  were  a  little  miscellaneous,  and  were 
very  variously  grouped  in  Balzac's  successive  rearrangements 
of  the  Comedie.  Indeed,  in  the  so-called  edition  definitive 
the  minor  stories  are  separated  from  "  La  Maison  Nucingen," 
while  an  earlier  arrangement  still  was  different  again. 

The  long  piece  entitled  "  Les  Employes,"  which  fills  more 
than  half  the  entire  volume,  and  nearly  two-thirds  of  it  with- 
out "Sarrasine,"  has  rather  dubious  claims  to  be  called  a 
novel  or  a  story  at  all.  Balzac,  either  from  the  fact  of  his 
father  having  been  employed  in  the  civil  department  of  the 
army,  or  because  he  had  been  destined  himself  by  kind  family 
friends  to  the  rond-de-cuir  (the  office-stool),  or  because  he  was 
a  typical  Frenchman — for  while  half  the  French  nation  sits  on 
these  stools,  the  other  half  divides  its  time  between  laughing 
at  them  and  envying  them — was  always  exceedingly  intent  on 
the  ways  and  manners  of  government  offices.  One  of  the 
least  immature  scenes  of  his  CEuvres  de  Jeunesse,  the  open- 
ing passage  of  "Argow  le  Pirate,"  concerns  the  subject.  The 
collection  of  his  CEuvres  Diverses,  only  of  late  years  opened 
to  the  explorer  who  has  less  than  libraries  at  his  command, 

*  Included  in  the  volume  "  The  Seamy  Side  of  History  "  in  this  edi- 
tion. 


xii  PREFACE. 

contains  repeated  returns  to  it,  of  which  the  "  Physiologic  de 
L'Employe"  was  the  best  known  and  most  popular;  and  the 
novels  proper  are  full  of  dealings  with  it.  In  this  particular 
piece,  indeed,  Balzac  has  actually  incorporated  something 
from  his  earlier  "Physiologic,"  and  has  thus  made  it  even 
less  of  a  story  than  it  was  when  it  first  appeared  under  the 
title  of  "La  Femme  Superieure."  In  that  condition  it  was 
divided  into  three  parts — "  Entre  deux  Femmes,"  "  Les 
Bureaux,"  and  "A  qui  la  place."  The  later  shape,  with  the 
additions  just  referred  to,  tended  to  overweight  the  middle 
part  still  more  at  the  expense  of  the  two  ends;  and  as  it 
stands,  it  is  little  more  than  a  criticism,  partly  in  argu- 
ment, partly  in  dialogue,  of  administration  and  administra- 
tive methods,  with  a  certain  slight  personal  interest  at  both 
ends. 

"Les  Employes"  is  an  older  book  than  many,  being  origi- 
nally dated  July  1836.  It  also  appeared  in  the  "  Presse " 
just  a  year  after  its  composition,  but  was  then  called  "  La 
Femme  Superieure,"  which  name  it  kept  on  its  publication 
by  Werdet  as  a  book  in  1838.  It  was  here  enlarged,  and  had 
"La  Torpille"  (the  first  title  of  "Esther"  or  "Comment 
aiment  les  Filles")  and  "La  Maison  Nucingen  "  for  com- 
panions. There  were,  as  usual,  chapter  divisions  and  titles. 
At  its  first  appearance  in  the  Comedie  the  actual  title  and 
"  La  Femme  Superieure  "  were  given  as  alternatives,  but  later 
"  Les  Employes ' '  displaced  the  other. 

G.  S. 


THE  MUSE  OF  THE  DEPARTMENT. 

To  Monsieur  le  Comte  Ferdinand  de  Gramont. 

My  dear  Ferdinand : — If  the  chances  of  the  7vorld 
of  literature — habent   sua   fata   libelli — should  allow 
these  lines  to  be  an  enduring  record,  that  will  still  be 
but  a  trifle  in  return  for  the  trouble  you  have  taken — 
you,  the  Hozier,  the  Cherin,  the  King-at-Arms  of  these 
Studies  of  Life;  you,  to  zvhom  the  N'avarreins,  Cadig- 
nans,  Langeais,  Blamont-  Chauvrys,  Chaulieus,  Arthez, 
Esgrignons,    Mortsaufs,     Valois—the   hundred  great 
na?nes   thai  form   the    aristocracy   of   the   ''Human 
Comedy  ' '  owe  their  lordly  mottoes  and  ingenious  armo- 
rial bearings.     Indeed,  "  the  Armorial  of  the  Etudes, 
devised  by  Ferdinand  de   Gramont,  gentleman,  "is  a 
complete  Manual  of  French  Heraldry,  in  wiiich  tioth- 
ing  is  forgotten,  not  even  the  arms  of  the  Empire,  and 
I  shall  preserve  it  as  a  monument  of  friendship  and  of 
Benedictine  patience.      What  profound  knowledge  of 
the  old  feudal  spirit  is  to  be  seen  in  the  motto  of  the 
Bauseants,  Pulchre,  sedens,  melius  agens ;  in  that  of 
the  Espards,  Des  partem  leonis;  in  that  of  the  Van- 
denesses,   Ne    se   vend.     And  what  elegance   in  the 
thousand  details  of  the  learned  symbolism  which  will 
always  show  how  far  accuracy  has  been  carried  in  my 
work,  to  7vhich  you,  the  poet,  have  contributed. 
Your  old  friend, 

De  Balzac. 

On  the  skirts  of  Le  Berry  stands  a  town  which,  watered  by 
the   Loire,   infallibly  attracts   the    traveler's   eye.      Sancerre 

(1) 


2  THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT. 

crowns  the  topmost  height  of  a  chain  of  hills,  the  last  of  the 
range  that  gives  variety  to  the  Nivernais.  The  Loire  floods 
the  flats  at  the  foot  of  these  slopes,  leaving  a  yellow  alluvium 
that  is  extremely  fertile,  except  in  those  places  where  it  has 
deluged  them  with  sand  and  destroyed  them  forever,  by  one 
of  those  terrible  risings  which  are  also  incidental  to  the  Vistula 
— the  Loire  of  the  northern  coast. 

The  hill  on  which  the  houses  of  Sancerre  are  grouped  is  so 
far  from  the  river  that  the  little  river-port  of  Saint-Thibault 
thrives  on  the  life  of  Sancerre.  There  wine  is  shipped  and 
oak  staves  are  landed,  with  all  the  produce  brought  from  the 
upper  and  lower  Loire.  At  the  period  when  this  story  begins 
the  suspension  bridges  at  Cosne  and  Saint-Thibault  were 
already  built.  Travelers  from  Paris  to  Sancerre  by  the 
Southern  road  were  no  longer  ferried  across  the  river  from 
Cosne  to  Saint-Thibault ;  and  this  of  itself  is  enough  to  show 
that  the  great  cross-shuffle  of  1830  was  a  thing  of  the  past,  for 
the  House  of  Orleans  has  always  had  a  care  for  substantial 
improvements,  though  somewhat  after  the  fashion  of  a  husband 
who  makes  his  wife  presents  out  of  her  marriage-portion. 

Excepting  that  part  of  Sancerre  which  occupies  the  little 
plateau,  the  streets  are  more  or  less  steep,  and  the  town  is 
surrounded  by  slopes  known  as  the  Great  Ramparts,  a  name 
which  shows  that  they  are  the  high-roads  of  the  place. 

Outside  the  ramparts  lies  a  belt  of  vineyards.  Wine  forms 
the  chief  industry  and  the  most  important  trade  of  the  country, 
which  yields  several  vintages  of  high-class  wine  full  of  aroma, 
and  so  nearly  resembling  the  wines  of  Burgundy,  that  the 
vulgar  palate  is  deceived.  So  Sancerre  finds  in  the  wine-shops 
of  Paris  the  quick  market  indispensable  for  liquor  that  will 
not  keep  for  more  than  seven  or  eight  years.  Below  the  town 
lie  a  fev,'  villages,  Fontenoy  and  Saint-Satur,  almost  suburbs, 
reminding  us  by  their  situation  of  the  smiling  vineyards  about 
Neufchatel  in  Switzerland. 

The  town  still  bears  much  of  its  ancient  aspect ;  the  streets 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT.  3 

are  narrow  and  paved  with  cobbles  carted  up  from  the  Loire. 
Some  old  houses  are  to  be  seen  there.  The  citadel,  a  relic  of 
military  power  and  feudal  times,  stood  one  of  the  most  terrible 
sieges  of  our  religious  wars,  when  French  Calvinists  far  outdid 
the  ferocious  Cameronians  of  Walter  Scott's  tales. 

The  town  of  Sancerre,  rich  in  its  greater  past,  but  widowed 
now  of  its  military  importance,  is  doomed  to  an  even  less 
glorious  future,  for  the  course  of  trade  lies  on  the  right  bank  of 
the  Loire.  The  sketch  here  given  shows  that  Sancerre  will 
be  left  more  and  more  lonely  in  spite  of  the  two  bridges  con- 
necting it  with  Cosne. 

Sancerre,  the  pride  of  the  left  bank,  numbers  three  thousand 
five  hundred  inhabitants  at  most,  while  at  Cosne  there  are 
now  more  than  six  thousand.  Within  half  a  century  the  pait 
played  by  these  two  towns  standing  opposite  each  other  has 
been  reversed.  The  advantage  of  situation,  however,  remains 
with  the  historic  town,  whence  the  view  on  every  side  is  per- 
fectly enchanting,  where  the  air  is  deliciously  pure,  the  vege- 
tation splendid,  and  the  residents,  in  harmony  with  nature, 
are  friendly  souls,  good  fellows,  and  devoid  of  Puritanism, 
though  two-thirds  of  the  population  are  Calvinists.  Under 
such  conditions,  though  there  are  the  usual  disadvantages  of 
life  in  a  small  town,  and  each  one  lives  under  the  officious  eye 
which  makes  private  life  almost  a  public  concern,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  spirit  of  township — a  sort  of  patriotism,  which 
cannot  indeed  take  the  place  of  a  love  of  home — flourishes 
triumphantly. 

Thus  the  town  of  Sancerre  is  exceedingly  proud  of  having 
given  birth  to  one  of  the  glories  of  modern  medicine,  Horace 
Bianchon,  and  to  an  author  of  secondary  rank,  Etienne  Lous- 
teau,  one  of  our  most  successful  journalists.  The  district  in- 
cluded under  the  municipality  of  Sancerre,  distressed  at  find- 
ing itself  practically  ruled  by  seven  or  eight  large  landowners, 
the  wire-pullers  of  the  elections,  tried  to  shake  off  the  electoral 
yoke  of  a  creed  which  had  reduced  it  to  a  rotten  borough. 


4  THE   MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT. 

This  little  conspiracy,  plotted  by  a  handful  of  men  whose 
vanity  was  provoked,  failed  through  the  jealousy  which  the 
elevation  of  one  of  them,  as  the  inevitable  result,  roused  in 
the  breasts  of  the  others.  This  result  showed  the  radical 
defect  of  the  scheme,  and  the  remedy  then  suggested  was  to 
rally  round  a  champion  at  the  next  election,  in  the  person  of 
one  of  the  two  men  who  so  gloriously  represented  Sancerre 
in  Paris  circles. 

This  idea  was  extraordinarily  advanced  for  the  provinces, 
for  since  1830  the  nomination  of  parochial  dignitaries  has 
increased  so  greatly  that  real  statesmen  are  becoming  rare 
indeed  in  the  lower  chamber. 

In  point  of  fact,  this  plan,  of  very  doubtful  outcome,  was 
hatched  in  the  brain  of  the  Superior  Woman  of  the  borough, 
dux  femina  fasti,  but  with  a  view  to  personal  interest.  This 
idea  was  so  widely  rooted  in  this  lady's  past  life,  and  so  entirely 
comprehended  her  future  prospects,  that  it  can  scarcely  be 
understood  without  some  sketch  of  her  antecedent  career. 

Sancerre  at  that  time  could  boast  of  a  Superior  Woman, 
long  misprized  indeed,  but  now,  about  1836,  enjoying  a  pretty 
extensive  local  reputation.  This,  too,  was  the  period  at  which 
the  two  Sancerrois  in  Paris  were  attaining,  each  in  his  own 
line,  to  the  highest  degree  of  glory  for  one,  and  of  fashion 
for  the  other.  Etienne  Lousteau,  a  writer  in  reviews,  signed 
his  name  to  contributions  to  a  paper  that  had  eight  thousand 
subscribers ;  and  Bianchon,  already  chief  physician  to  a 
hospital,  officer  of  the  Legion  of  Honor,  and  member  of  the 
Academy  of  Sciences,  had  just  been  made  a  professor. 

If  it  were  not  that  the  word  would  to  many  readers  seem  to 
imply  a  degree  of  blame,  it  might  be  said  that  George  Sand 
created  Safidism,  so  true  is  it  that,  morally  speaking,  all  good 
has  a  reverse  of  evil.  This  leprosy  of  sentimentality  has  spoilt 
many  women,  who,  but  for  her  pretensions  to  genius,  would 
have  been  charming.     Still,  Sandism  has  its  good  side,  in  that 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMEiVT.  5 

the  woman  attacked  by  it  bases  her  assumption  of  superiority 
on  feelings  scorned  ;  she  is  a  blue-stocking  of  sentiment ;  and 
she  is  rather  less  of  a  bore,  love  to  some  extent  neutralizing 
literature.  The  most  conspicuous  result  of  George  Sand's 
celebrity  was  to  elicit  the  fact  that  France  has  a  perfectly 
enormous  number  of  superior  women,  who  have,  however,  till 
now  been  so  generous  as  to  leave  the  field  to  the  Marechal  de 
Saxe's  granddaughter. 

The  Superior  Woman  of  Sancerre  lived  at  La  Baudraye,  a 
town-house  and  country-house  in  one,  within  ten  minutes  of 
the  town,  and  in  the  village,  or,  if  you  will,  the  suburb  of 
Saint-Satur.  The  La  Baudrayes  of  the  present  day  have,  as  is 
frequently  the  case,  thrust  themselves  in,  and  are  but  a  sub- 
stitute for  those  La  Baudrayes  whose  name,  glorious  in  the 
Crusades,  figured  in  the  chief  events  of  the  history  of  Le  Berry. 

The  story  must  be  told. 

In  the  time  of  Louis  XIV.  a  certain  sheriff  named  Milaud, 
whose  forefathers  had  been  furious  Calvinists,  was  converted 
at  the  time  of  the  Revocation  of  the  Edict  of  Nantes.  To 
encourage  this  movement  in  one  of  the  strongholds  of  Cal- 
vinism, the  King  gave  the  said  Milaud  a  good  appointment  in 
the  "  Waters  and  Forests,"  granted  him  arms  and  the  title  of 
Sieur  (or  Lord)  de  La  Baudraye,  with  the  fief  of  the  old  and 
genuine  La  Baudrayes.  The  descendants  of  the  famous  Cap- 
tain La  Baudraye  fell,  sad  to  say,  into  one  of  the  snares  laid 
for  heretics  by  the  new  decrees,  and  were  hanged — an  un- 
worthy deed  of  the  great  King's. 

Under  Louis  XV.  Milaud  de  La  Baudraye,  from  being  a 
mere  squire,  was  made  chevalier,  and  had  influence  enough  to 
obtain  for  his  son  an  ensign's  commission  in  the  Musketeers. 
Tliis  officer  perished  at  Fontenoy,  leaving  a  child,  to  whom 
King  Louis  XVI.  subsequently  granted  the  privileges,  by 
patent,  of  a  farmer-general,  in  remembrance  of  his  father's 
death  on  the  field  of  battle. 

This  financier,  a  fashionable  wit,  great  at  charades,  capping 


6  THE   MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT. 

verses,  and  posies  to  Chlora,  lived  in  society,  was  a  hanger-on 
to  the  Duke  of  Nivernais,  and  fancied  himself  obliged  to 
follow  the  nobilitv  into  exile ;  but  he  took  care  to  carrv  his 
money  with  him.  Thus  the  rich  emigre  was  able  to  assist 
more  than  one  family  of  high  rank. 

In  1800,  tired  of  hoping,  and  perhaps  tired  of  lending,  he 
returned  to  Sancerre,  bouglit  back  La  Baudraye  out  of  a  feel- 
ing of  vanity  and  imaginary  pride,  quite  intelligible  in  a 
sheriff's  grandson,  though  under  the  consulate  his  prospects 
were  but  slender;  all  the  more  so,  indeed,  because  the  ex- 
farmer-general  had  small  hopes  of  his  heir's  perpetuating  the 
new  race  of  La  Baudrave. 

Jean-Athanase-Polydore  Milaud  de  La  Baudraye,  his  only 
son,  more  than  delicate  from  his  birth,  was  very  evidently  the 
child  of  a  man  whose  constitution  had  early  been  exhausted  by 
the  excesses  in  which  rich  men  indulge,  who  then  marry  at 
the  first  stage  of  premature  old  age,  and  thus  bring  degeneracy 
into  the  highest  circles  of  society.  During  the  years  of  the 
emigration  Madame  de  La  Baudraye,  a  girl  of  no  fortune, 
chosen  for  her  noble  birth,  had  patiently  reared  this  sallow, 
sickly  boy,  for  whom  she  had  the  devoted  love  mothers  feel 
for  such  changeling  creatures.  Her  death — she  was  a  Casteran 
de  la  Tour — contributed  to  bring  about  Monsieur  de  La  Bau- 
draye's  return  to  France. 

This  Lucullus  of  the  Milauds,  when  he  died,  left  his  son  the 
iief,  stripped  indeed  of  its  fines  and  dues,  but  graced  with  the 
weathercocks  bearing  his  coat-of-arras,  a  thousand  louis-d'or — 
in  1802  a  considerable  sum  of  mone)' — and  certain  recei-pts  for 
claims  on  very  distinguished  emigres  inclosed  in  a  pocket- 
book  full  of  verses,  with  this  inscription  on  the  wrapper: 
Vanity  of  vanities,  all  is  vanity. 

Young  La  Baudraye  did  not  die,  but  he  owed  his  life  to 
habits  of  monastic  strictness  ;  to  the  economy  of  action  which 
Fontenelle  preached  as  the  religion  of  the  invalid;  and,  above 
all,  to  the  air  of  Sancerre  and  the  influence  of  its  fine  elevation. 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT.  7 

whence  a  panorama  of  the  valley  of  the  Loire  may  be  seen 
extending  for  forty  leagues. 

From  1S02  to  1815  young  La  Baudraye  added  several  plots 
to  his  vineyards,  and  devoted  himself  to  the  culture  of  the  vine. 
The  Restoration  seemed  to  him  at  first  so  insecure  that  he 
dared  not  go  to  Paris  to  claim  his  debts ;  but  after  Napoleon's 
death  he  tried  to  turn  his  father's  collection  of  autographs  into 
money,  though  not  understanding  the  deep  philosophy  which 
had  thus  mixed  up  I  O  U's  and  copies  of  verses.  But  the 
vinegrower  lost  so  much  time  in  impressing  his  identity  on 
the  Duke  of  Navarreins  "and  others,"  as  he  phrased  it,  that 
he  came  back  to  Sancerre,  to  his  beloved  vintage,  without 
having  obtained  anything  but  offers  of  service. 

The  Restoration  had  raised  the  nobility  to  such  a  degree  of 
lustre  as  made  La  Baudraye  wish  to  justify  his  ambitions  by  hav- 
ing an  heir.  This  happy  result  of  matrimony  he  considered 
doubtful,  or  he  would  not  so  long  have  postponed  the  step ; 
however,  finding  himself  still  above  ground  in  1823,  at  the  age 
of  forty-three,  a  length  of  years  which  no  doctor,  astrologer,  or 
midwife  would  have  dared  to  promise  him,  he  hoped  to  earn 
the  reward  of  his  sober  life.  And  yet  his  choice  showed  such 
a  lack  of  prudence  in  regard  to  his  frail  constitution,  that  the 
malicious  wit  of  a  country  town  could  not  help  thinking  it  must 
be  the  result  of  some  deep  calculation. 

Just  at  this  time  his  eminence,  Monseigneur  the  Archbishop 
of  Bourges,  had  converted  to  the  Catholic  faith  a  young  per- 
son, the  daughter  of  one  of  the  citizen  families,  who  were  the 
first  upholders  of  Calvinism,  and  who,  thanks  to  their  obscurity 
or  to  some  compromise  with  heaven,  had  escaped  from  the 
persecutions  under  Louis  XIV.  The  Piedefers — a  name  that 
was  obviously  one  of  the  quaint  nicknames  assumed  by  the 
champions  of  the  Reformation — had  set  up  as  highly  respect- 
able cloth  merchants.  But  in  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV.,  Abra- 
ham Picdcfcr  fell  into  difficulties,  and  at  his  death  in  17S6 
left  his  two  children  in  extreme  poverty.     One  of  them,  Tobie 


8  THE  MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT. 

Piedefcr,  went  out  to  the  IndieS;  leaving  the  pittance  they  had 
inherited  to  his  elder  brother.  During  the  Revolution  MoVse 
Piedefer  bought  up  the  nationalized  land,  pulled  down  abbeys 
and  churches  with  all  the  zeal  of  his  ancestors,  oddly  enough, 
and  married  a  Catholic,  the  only  daughter  of  a  member  of  the 
Convention  who  had  perished  on  the  scaffold.  This  ambitious 
Piedefer  died  in  1819,  leaving  his  wife  a  fortune  impaired  by 
agricultural  speculation,  and  a  little  girl  of  remarkable  beauty. 
This  child,  brought  up  in  the  Calvinist  faith,  was  named 
Dinah,  in  accordance  with  the  custom  in  use  among  the  sect 
of  taking  their  Christian  names  from  the  Bible,  so  as  to  have 
nothing  in  common  with  the  saints  of  the  Roman  church. 

Mademoiselle  Dinah  Piedefer  was  placed  by  her  mother  in 
one  of  the  best  schools  in  Bourges,  that  kept  by  the  Demoi- 
selles Chamarolles,  and  was  soon  as  highly  distinguished  for 
the  qualities  of  her  mind  as  for  her  beauty;  but  she  found 
herself  snubbed  by  girls  of  birth  and  fortune,  destined  by-and- 
by  to  play  a  greater  part  in  the  world  than  a  mere  plebeian,  the 
daughter  of  a  mother  who  was  dependent  on  tlie  settlement  of 
Piedefer's  estate.  Dinah,  having  raised  herself  for  the  mo- 
ment above  her  companions,  now  aimed  at  remaining  on  a 
level  with  them  for  the  rest  of  her  life.  She  determined, 
therefore,  to  renounce  Calvinism,  in  the  hope  that  the  cardinal 
would  extend  his  favor  to  his  proselyte  and  interest  himself  in 
her  prospects.  You  may  from  this  judge  of  Mademoiselle 
Dinah's  superiority,  since  at  the  age  of  seventeen  she  was  a 
convert  solely  from  ambition. 

The  archbishop,  possessed  with  the  idea  that  Dinah  Piedefer 
would  adorn  society,  was  anxious  to  see  her  married.  But 
every  family  to  whom  the  prelate  made  advances  took  fright 
at  a  damsel  gifted  with  the  looks  of  a  princess,  who  was  reputed 
the  cleverest  of  Mademoiselle  Chamarolles'  pupils,  and  who, 
at  the  somewhat  theatrical  ceremonial  of  prize-giving,  always 
took  a  leading  part.  A  thousand  crowns  a  year,  which  was  as 
much  as  she  could  hope  for  from  the  estate  of  La  Hautoy 


THE  MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT.  9 

when  divided  between  the  mother  and  daughter,  would  be 
a  mere  trifle  in  comparison  with  the  expenses  into  which  a 
husband  would  be  led  by  the  personal  advantages  of  so  bril- 
liant a  creature. 

As  soon  as  all  these  facts  came  to  the  ears  of  little  Polydore 
de  La  Baudraye — for  they  were  tlie  talk  of  every  circle  in  the 
Department  of  the  Cher — he  went  to  Bourges  just  when  Madame 
Piedefer,  a  devotee  at  high  services,  had  almost  made  up  her 
own  mind  and  her  daughter's  to  take  the  first  comer  with 
well-lined  pockets — the  first  chien  coiffe  (handsome-faced  dog), 
as  they  say  in  Le  Berry.  And  if  the  cardinal  was  delighted 
to  receive  Monsieur  de  La  Baudraye,  Monsieur  de  La  Bau- 
draye was  even  better  pleased  to  receive  a  wife  from  the  hands 
of  the  cardinal.  The  little  gentleman  only  demanded  of  his 
eminence  a  formal  promise  to  support  his  claims  with  the 
president  of  the  Council  to  enable  him  to  recover  his  debts 
from  the  Due  de  Navarreins  "  and  others  "  by  a  lien  on  their 
indemnities.  This  method,  however,  seemed  to  the  able  min- 
ister then  occupying  the  Pavilion  Marsan  rather  too  sharp 
practice,  and  he  gave  the  vine-owner  to  understand  that  his 
business  should  be  attended  to  all  in  good  time. 

It  is  easy  to  imagine  the  excitement  produced  in  the  San- 
cerre  district  by  the  news  of  Monsieur  de  La  Baudraye's  im- 
prudent marriage. 

"It  is  quite  intelligible,"  said  President  Boirouge  ;  "the 
little  man  was  very  mucli  startled,  as  I  am  told,  at  hearing 
that  handsome  young  Milaud,  the  attorney-general's  deputy 
at  Nevers,  say  to  Monsieur  de  Clagny  as  they  were  looking  at 
the  turrets  of  La  Baudraye:  'That  will  be  mine  some  day.' 
'  But,'  says  Clagny,  '  he  may  marry  and  have  children.'  '  Im- 
possible !  '  So  you  may  imagine  how  sucli  a  changeling  as 
little  La  Baudraye  must  hate  that  colossal  Milaud." 

There  was  at  Nevers  a  plebeian  branch  of  the  Milauds, 
which  had  grown  so  rich  in  the  cutlery  trade  that  the  present 
representative  of  that  branch  had  been  brought  up  to  the  civil 


10  THE  MUSE    OE  THE  DEPARTMENT. 

service,  in  which  he  had  enjoyed  the  patronage  of  Marchangy, 
now  dead. 

It  will  be  as  well  to  eliminate  from  this  story,  in  which 
moral  developments  play  the  principal  part,  the  baser  material 
interests  which  alone  occupied  Monsieur  de  La  Baudraye,  by 
briefly  relating  the  results  of  his  negotiations  in  Paris.  This 
will  also  throw  light  on  certain  mysterious  phenomena  of  con- 
temporary history,  and  the  underground  difficulties  in  matters 
of  politics  which  hampered  the  Ministry  at  the  time  of  the 
Restoration. 

The  promises  of  ministers  were  so  illusory  that  Monsieur  de 
La  Baudraye  determined  on  going  to  Paris  at  the  time  when 
the  cardinal's  presence  was  required  there  by  the  sitting  of  the 
Chambers. 

This  is  how  the  Due  de  Navarreins,  the  principal  debtor 
as  yet  threatened  by  Monsieur  de  La  Baudraye,  got  out  of  the 
scrape : 

The  country  gentleman,  lodging  at  the  Hotel  de  Mayence, 
Rue  Saint-Honore,  near  the  Place  Vendorae,  one  morning  re- 
ceived a  visit  from  a  confidential  agent  of  the  Ministry,  who 
was  an  expert  in  "winding  up"  business.  This  elegant  per- 
sonage, who  stepped  out  of  an  elegant  cab,  and  was  dressed 
in  the  most  elegant  style,  was  requested  to  walk  up  to  No.  37 
—that  is  to  say,  to  the  fourth  floor,  to  a  small  room  where  he 
found  his  provincial  concocting  a  cup  of  coff'ee  over  his  bed- 
room fire. 

"  Is  it  to  Monsieur  Milaud  de  La  Baudraye  that  I  have  the 
honor ?" 

"Yes,"  said  the  little  man,  draping  himself  in  his  dressing- 
gown. 

After  examining  this  garment,  the  illicit  offspring  of  an  old 
Chinese  wrapper  of  Madame  Piedefer's  and  a  gown  of  the  late 
lamented  Madame  de  La  Baudraye,  the  emissary  considered 
the  man,  the  dressing-gown,  and  the  little  stove  on  which  the 


is    IT    TO    MONSIEUR    MiLAUD    DE    LA    BAUDRAYE    THAT   I 
HAVE  THE  HONOR ?" 


I         "%:>.-■  -« 


II 

Li 


THE   MUSE    OF  THE  DEPARTMENT.  11 

milk  was  boiling  in  a  tin  saucepan  as  so  homogeneous  and 
characteristic  that  he  deemed  it  needless  to  beat  about  the 
bush. 

"I  will  lay  a  wager,  monsieur,"  said  he  audaciously,  "that 
you  dine  for  forty  sous  at  Hurbain's  in  the  Palais  Royal." 

"Pray,  why?" 

"Oh,  I  know  you,  having  seen  you  there,"  replied  the 
Parisian  with  perfect  gravity.  "  All  the  princes'  creditors 
dine  there.  You  know  that  you  recover  scarcely  ten  per  cent, 
on  debts  from  these  fine  gentlemen.  I  would  not  give  you 
five  per  cent,  on  a  debt  to  be  recovered  from  the  estate  of  the 
late  Due  d'Orleans — nor  even,"  he  added  in  a  low  voice — 

"  from  MONSIEUR." 

"  So  you  have  come  to  buy  up  the  bills  ?  "  said  La  Baudraye, 
thinking  himself  very  clever. 

"Buy  them  !  "  said  his  visitor.  "Why,  what  do  you  take 
me  for?  I  am  Monsieur  des  Lupeaulx,  master  of  appeals,  sec- 
retary-general to  the  Ministry,  and  I  have  come  to  propose  an 
arrangement." 

"What  is  that?" 

"  Of  course,  monsieur,  you  know  the  position  of  your 
debtor " 

"Of  my  debtors " 

"Well,  monsieur,  you  understand  the  position  of  your 
debtors;  they  stand  high  in  the  King's  good  graces,  but  they 
have  no  money,  and  are  obliged  to  make  a  good  show. 
Again,  you  know  the  difficulties  of  the  political  situation. 
The  aristocracy  has  to  be  rehabilitated  in  the  face  of  a  very 
strong  force  of  the  third  estate.  The  King's  idea — and  France 
does  him  scant  justice — is  to  create  a  peerage  as  a  national  in- 
stitution analogous  to  the  English  peerage.  To  realize  this 
grand  idea,  we  need  years — and  millions — the  obligations  of 
rank.  The  Due  de  Navarreins,  who  is,  as  you  know,  first  gen- 
tleman of  the  bedchamber  to  the  King,  does  not  repudiate  his 
debt ;  but  he  cannot Now,  be  reasonable.     Consider  the 


12  THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT. 

state  of  politics.    We  are  emerging  from  the  pit  of  Revolution. 
And  you  yourself  are  noble.     He  simply  cannot  pay " 

"  Monsieur " 

"You  are  hasty,"  said  des  Lupeaulx.  '-'Listen.  He  can- 
not pay  in  money.  Well,  then  ;  you,  a  clever  man,  can  take 
payment  in  favors — Royal  or  Ministerial." 

"What !  When  in  1793  my  father  put  down  one  hundred 
thousand " 

"  My  dear  sir,  recrimination  is  useless.  Listen  to  a  simple 
statement  in  political  arithmetic :  The  collectorship  at  San- 
cerre  is  vacant ;  a  certain  paymaster-general  of  the  forces  has 
a  claim  on  it,  but  he  has  no  chance  of  getting  it ;  you  have  the 
chance — and  no  claim.  You  will  get  the  place.  You  will 
hold  it  for  three  months,  you  will  then  resign,  and  Monsieur 
Gravier  will  give  twenty  thousand  francs  for  it.  In  addition, 
the  order  of  the  Legion  of  Honor  will  be  conferred  on  you." 

"Well,  that  is  something,"  said  the  vine-grower,  tempted 
by  the  money  rather  than  by  the  red  ribbon. 

"But  then,"  said  des  Lupeaulx,  "you  must  show  your 
gratitude  to  his  excellency  by  restoring  to  Monseigneur  the 
Duke  of  Navarreins  all  your  claims  on  him." 

La  Baudraye  returned  to  Sancerre  as  collector  of  taxes. 
Six  months  later  he  was  superseded  by  Monsieur  Grr.vier, 
regarded  as  one  of  the  most  agreeable  financiers  who  had 
served  under  the  Empire,  and  who  was  of  course  presented 
by  Monsieur  de  La  Baudraye  to  his  wife. 

As  soon  as  he  was  released  from  his  functions,  Monsieur  de 
La  Baudraye  returned  to  Paris  to  come  to  an  understanding 
with  some  other  debtors.  This  time  he  was  made  a  referen- 
dary under  the  great  seal,  baron,  and  officer  of  the  Legion  of 
Honor.  He  sold  the  appointment  as  referendary;  and  then 
the  Baron  de  La  Baudraye  called  on  his  last  remaining  debtors, 
and  reappeared  at  Sancerre  as  master  of  appeals,  with  an  ap- 
pointment as  royal  commissioner  to  a  commercial  association 
established  in  the  Nivernais,  at  a  salary  of  six  thousand  francs, 


THE   MUSE    OF  THE  DEPARTMENT.  13 

an  absolute  sinecure.  So  the  worthy  La  Baudraye,  who  was 
supposed  to  have  committed  a  financial  blunder,  had,  in  fact, 
done  very  good  business  in  the  choice  of  a  wife. 

Thanks  to  sordid  economy  and  an  indemnity  paid  him  for 
the  estate  belonging  to  his  father,  nationalized  and  sold  in 
1 793'  by  ^^  y^^^  1827  the  little  man  could  realize  the  dream  of 
his  whole  life.  By  paying  four  hundred  thousand  francs  down, 
and  binding  himself  to  further  installments,  which  compelled 
him  to  live  for  six  years  on  the  air  as  it  came,  to  use  his  own 
expression,  he  was  able  to  purchase  the  estate  of  Anzy  on  the 
banks  of  the  Loire,  about  two  leagues  above  Sancerre,  and  its 
magnificent  castle  built  bv  Philibert  de  I'Orme,  the  admiration 
of  every  connoisseur,  and  for  five  centuries  the  property  of  the 
Uxelles  family.  At  last  he  was  one  of  the  great  landowners 
of  the  province  !  It  is  not  absolutely  certain  that  the  satis- 
faction of  knowing  that  an  entail  had  been  created,  by  letters- 
patent  dated  back  to  December,  1820,  including  the  estates 
of  Anzy,  of  La  Baudraye,  and  of  La  Hautoy,  was  any  com- 
pensation to  Dinah  on  finding  herself  reduced  to  unconfessed 
penuriousness  till  1835. 

This  sketch  of  the  financial  policy  of  the  first  Baron  de  La 
Baudraye  explains  the  man  completely.  Those  who  are 
familiar  with  the  manias  of  country-folk  will  recognize  in  him 
the  land-huuger  which  becomes  such  a  consuming  passion  to 
the  exclusion  of  every  other ;  a  sort  of  avarice  displayed  in  the 
sight  of  the  sun,  which  often  leads  to  ruin  by  a  want  of  bal- 
ance between  the  interest  on  mortgages  and  the  products  of 
the  soil.  Those  who,  from  1802  till  1827,  had  merely  laughed 
at  the  little  man  as  they  saw  him  trotting  to  Saint-Thibault 
and  attending  to  his  business,  like  a  merchant  living  on  his 
vineyards,  found  the  answer  to  the  riddle  when  the  ant-lion 
seized  his  prey,  after  wailing  for  the  day  when  the  extrava- 
gance of  the  Duchesse  de  Maufrigneuse  culminated  in  the  sale 
of  that  splendid  property. 

Madame  Piedefer  came  to   live  with  her  daughter.     The 


14  THE   MUSE    OF  THE  DEPARTMENT. 

combined  fortunes  of  Monsieur  de  La  Baudraye  and  his 
inother-in-law,  who  had  been  content  to  accept  an  annuity 
of  twelve  hundred  francs  on  the  lands  of  La  Hautoy  which 
slie  handed  over  to  him,  amounted  to  an  acknowledged  in- 
come of  about  fifteen  thousand  francs. 

During  the  early  days  of  her  married  life,  Dinah  had  effected 
some  alterations  which  had  made  the  house  at  La  Baudraye  a 
very  pleasant  residence.  She  turned  a  spacious  forecourt  into 
a  formal  garden,  pulling  down  wine-stores,  presses,  and  shabby 
outhouses.  Behind  the  manor-house,  which,  though  small, 
did  not  lack  style  with  its  turrets  and  gables,  she  laid  out  a 
second  garden  with  shrubs,  flower-beds,  and  lawns,  and 
divided  it  from  the  vineyards  by  a  wall  hidden  under  creepers. 
She  also  made  everything  within  doors  as  comfortable  as  their 
narrow  circumstances  allowed. 

In  order  not  to  be  ruined  by  a  young  lady  so  very  superior 
as  Dinah  seemed  to  be.  Monsieur  de  La  Baudraye  was  shrewd 
enough  to  say  nothing  as  to  the  recovery  of  debts  in  Paris. 
This  dead  secrecy  as  to  his  money  matters  gave  a  touch  of 
mystery  to  his  character,  and  lent  him  dignity  in  his  wife's; 
eyes  during  the  first  years  of  their  married  life — so  majestic  is 
silence  ! 

The  alterations  affected  at  La  Baudraye  made  everybody 
eager  to  see  the  young  mistress,  all  the  more  so  because  Dinah 
would  never  show  herself,  nor  receive  any  company,  before 
she  felt  quite  settled  in  her  home  and  had  thoroughly  studied 
the  inhabitants,  and,  above  all,  her  taciturn  husband.  When, 
one  spring  morning  in  1825,  pretty  Madame  de  La  Baudraye 
was  first  seen  walking  on  the  mall  in  a  blue  velvet  dress,  with 
her  mother  in  black  velvet,  there  was  quite  an  excitement  in 
Sancerre.  This  dress  confirmed  the  young  woman's  reputa- 
tion for  superiority,  brought  up,  as  she  had  been,  in  the  capital 
of  Le  Berry.  Every  one  was  afraid  lest  in  entertaining  this 
phoenix  of  the  Department,  the  conversation  should  not  be 
clever  enough  \  and,  of  course,  everybody  was  constrained  in 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT.  15 

the  presence  of  Madame  de  La  Baudraye,  who  produced  a 
sort  of  terror  among  the  women-folk.  As  they  admired  a 
carpet  of  Indian  shawl-pattern  in  the  La  Baudrayfe  drawing- 
room,  a  Pompadour  writing-table  carved  and  gilt,  brocade 
window  curtains,  and  a  Japanese  bowl  full  of  flowers  on  the 
round  table  among  a  selection  of  the  newest  books  ;  when 
they  heard  the  fair  Dinah  playing  at  sight,  without  making 
the  smallest  demur  before  seating  herself  at  the  piano,  the  idea 
they  conceived  of  her  superiority  assumed  vast  proportions. 
That  she  might  never  allow  herself  to  become  careless  or  the 
victim  of  bad  taste,  Dinah  had  determined  to  keep  herself  up 
to  the  mark  as  to  the  fashions  and  latest  developments  of 
luxury  by  an  active  correspondence  with  Anna  Grossetete,  her 
bosom  friend  at  Mademoiselle  ChamaroUes'  school. 

Anna,  thanks  to  a  fine  fortune,  had  married  the  Comte  de 
Fontaine's  third  son.  Thus  those  ladies  who  visited  at  La 
Baudraye  were  perpetually  piqued  by  Dinah's  success  in  leading 
the  fashion ;  do  what  they  would,  they  were  always  behind, 
or,  as  they  say  on  the  turf,  distanced. 

While  all  these  trifles  gave  rise  to  malignant  envy  in  the 
ladies  of  Sancerre,  Dinah's  conversation  and  wit  engendered 
absolute  aversion.  In  her  ambition  to  keep  her  mind  on  the 
level  of  Parisian  brilliancy,  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  allowed 
no  vacuous  small  talk  in  her  presence,  no  old-fashioned  com- 
pliments, no  pointless  remarks  ;  she  would  never  endure  the 
yelping  of  tittle-tattle,  the  backstairs  slander  which  forms  the 
staple  of  talk  in  the  country.  She  liked  to  hear  of  the  discov- 
eries in  science  or  art,  or  the  latest  pieces  at  the  theatres,  the 
newest  poems,  and  by  airing  the  cant  words  of  the  day  she 
made  a  show  of  uttering  thoughts. 

The  Abbe  Duret,  cure  of  Sancerre,  an  old  man  of  a  lost 
type  of  clergy  in  France,  a  man  of  the  world  with  a  liking  for 
cards,  had  not  dared  to  indulge  this  taste  in  so  liberal  a  dis- 
trict as  Sancerre  ;  he,  therefore,  was  delighted  at  Madame  de 
La  Baudraye's  coming,  and  they  got  on  together  to  admira- 


16  THE  MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT. 

tion.  The  sub-prefect,  one  Vicomte  de  Chargeboeuf,  was 
delighted  to  find  in  Madame  de  La  Baudraye's  drawing-room 
a  sort  of  oasis  where  there  was  a  truce  to  provincial  life.  As 
to  Monsieur  de  Clagny,  the  public  prosecutor,  his  admiration 
for  the  fair  Dinah  kept  him  bound  to  Sancerre.  The  enthusi- 
astic lawyer  refused  all  promotion,  and  became  a  quite  pious 
adorer  of  this  angel  of  grace  and  beauty.  He  was  a  tall,  lean 
man,  with  a  minatory  countenance  set  off  by  terrible  eyes  in 
deep  black  circles,  under  enormous  eyebrows ;  and  his  elo- 
quence, very  unlike  his  love-making,  could  be  incisive. 

Monsieur  Gravier  was  a  little,  round  man,  who,  in  the  days 
of  the  Empire,  had  been  a  charming  ballad-singer;  it  was  this 
accomplishment  that  had  won  him  the  high  position  of  pay- 
master-general of  the  forces.  Having  mixed  himself  up  in 
certain  important  matters  in  Spain  with  generals  at  that  time 
in  opposition,  he  had  made  the  most  of  these  connections  to 
the  Minister,  who,  in  consideration  of  the  place  he  had  lost, 
promised  him  the  receivership  at  Sancerre,  and  then  allowed 
him  to  pay  for  the  appointment.  The  frivolous  spirit  and 
light  tone  of  the  Empire  had  become  ponderous  in  Monsieur 
Gravier ;  he  did  not,  or  would  not,  understand  the  wide 
difference  between  manners  under  the  Restoration  and  under 
the  Empire.  Still,  he  conceived  of  himself  as  far  superior  to 
Monsieur  de  Clagny;  his  style  was  in  better  taste;  he  fol- 
lowed the  fashion,  was  to  be  seen  in  a  buff  waistcoat,  gray 
trousers,  and  neat,  tightly  fitting  coats  ;  he  wore  a  fashionable 
silk  tie  slipped  through  a  diamond  ring,  while  the  lawyer 
never  dressed  in  anything  but  black — coat,  trousers,  and  vest 
alike,  and  those  often  shabby. 

These  four  men  were  the  first  to  go  into  ecstasies  over 
Dinah's  cultivation,  good  taste,  and  refinement,  and  pro- 
nounced her  a  woman  of  most  superior  mind.  Then  the 
women  said  to  each  other:  "Madame  de  La  Baudraye  must 
laugh  at  us  behind  our  backs." 

This  view,  which  was  more  or  less  correct,  kept  them  from 


THE  MUSE    OF   IHE  DEPARTMENT.  17 

visiting  at  La  Baudraye.  Dinah,  attainted  and  convicted  of 
pedantry,  because  she  spoke  grammatically,  was  nicknamed 
the  Sappho  of  Saint-Satur.  At  last  everybody  made  insolent 
game  of  the  great  qualities  of  the  woman  who  had  thus  roused 
the  enmity  of  the  ladies  of  Sancerre.  And  they  ended  by 
denying  a  superiority — after  all,  merely  comparative  ! — which 
emphasized  their  ignorance,  and  did  not  forgive  it.  Where 
the  whole  population  is  hunchbacked,  a  straight  shape  is  the 
monstrosity  ;  Dinah  was  regarded  as  monstrous  and  dangerous, 
and  she  found  herself  in  a  desert. 

Astonished  at  seeing  the  women  of  the  neighborhood  only 
at  long  intervals,  and  for  visits  of  a  few  minutes,  Dinah  asked 
Monsieur  de  Clagny  the  reason  of  this  state  of  things. 

"  You  are  too  superior  a  woman  to  be  liked  by  other 
women,"  said  the  lawyer. 

Monsieur  Gravier,  when  questioned  by  the  forlorn  fair,  only, 
after  much  entreaty,  replied — 

"  Well,  lady  fair,  you  are  not  satisfied  to  be  merely  charm- 
ing. You  are  clever  and  well  educated,  you  know  every  book 
that  comes  out,  you  love  poetry,  you  are  a  musician,  and  you 
talk  delightfully.  Women  cannot  forgive  so  much  supe- 
riority." 

Men  said  to  Monsieur  de  La  Baudraye — 

*'  You  who  have  such  a  Superior  Woman  for  a  wife  are 
very  fortunate "     And  at  last  he  himself  would  say — 

**  I  who  have  a  Superior  Woman  for  a  wife,  am  very  fortu- 
nate," etc. 

Madame  Piedefer,  flattered  through  her  daughter,  also 
allowed  herself  to  say  such  things — "  My  daughter,  who  is  a 
very  Superior  Woman,  was  writing  yesterday  to  Madame  de 
Fontaine  such  and  such  a  thing." 

Those  who  know  the  world — France,  Paris — know  how  true 
it  is  that  many  celebrities  are  thus  created. 

Two  years  later,  by  the  end  of  the  year  1825,  Dinah  de  La 
2 


18  THE  MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT. 

Baudraye  was  accused  of  not  choosing  to  have  any  visitors 
but  men ;  then  it  was  said  that  she  did  not  care  for  women — 
and  that  was  a  crime.  Not  a  tiling  she  could  do,  not  her 
most  trifling  action,  could  escape  criticism  and  misrepresenta- 
tion. After  making  every  sacrifice  that  a  well-bred  woman 
can  make,  and  placing  herself  entirely  in  the  right,  Madame 
de  La  Baudraye  was  so  rash  as  to  say  to  a  false  friend  who 
condoled  with  her  on  her  isolation — 

"  I  would  rather  have  my  bowl  empty  than  with in  it  !  " 

This  speech  produced  a  terrible  effect  on  Sancerre,  and  was 
cruelly  retorted  on  the  Sappho  of  Saint-Satur  when,  seeing 
her  childless  after  five  years  of  married  life.  Utile  de  La  Bau- 
draye became  a  by-word  for  laughter.  To  understand  this 
provincial  witticism,  readers  may  be  reminded  of  the  Bailli  de 
Ferrette — some,  no  doubt,  having  known  him — of  whom  it 
was  said  that  he  was  the  bravest  man  in  Europe  for  daring  to 
walk  on  his  legs,  and  who  was  accused  of  putting  lead  in  his 
shoes  to  save  himself  from  being  blown  away.  Monsieur  de 
La  Baudraye,  a  sallow  and  almost  diaphanous  creature,  would 
have  been  engaged  by  the  Bailli  de  Ferrette  as  first  gentleman- 
in-waiting  if  that  diplomatist  had  been  the  Grand  Duke  of 
Baden  instead  of  being  merely  his  envoy. 

Monsieur  de  La  Baudraye,  whose  legs  were  so  thin  that,  for 
mere  decency,  he  wore  false  calves,  whose  thighs  were  like 
the  arms  of  an  average  man,  whose  body  was  not  unlike  that 
of  a  cockchafer,  would  have  been  an  advantageous  foil  to  the 
Bailli  de  Ferrette.  As  he  walked,  the  little  vine-owner's  leg- 
pads  often  twisted  round  on  to  his  shins,  so  little  did  he  make 
a  secret  of  them,  and  he  would  thank  any  one  who  warned 
him  of  this  little  mishap.  He  wore  knee-breeches,  black  silk 
stockings,  and  a  white  vest  till  1824.  After  his  marriage  he 
adopted  blue  trousers  and  shoes  with  heels,  which  made  San- 
cerre declare  that  he  had  added  two  inches  to  his  stature  that 
he  might  come  up  to  his  wife's  chin.  For  ten  years  he  was 
always  seen   in  the  same  little  bottle-green  coat  with  large 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT.  19 

white-metal  buttons,  and  a  black  stock  that  accentuated  his 
cold,  stingy  face,  lighted  up  by  gray-blue  eyes  as  keen  and  pas- 
sionless as  a  cat's.  Being  very  gentle,  as  men  are  who  act  on 
a  fixed  plan  of  conduct,  he  seemed  to  make  his  wife  happy  by 
never  contradicting  her;  he  allowed  her  to  do  the  talking, 
and  was  satisfied  to  move  with  the  deliberate  tenacity  of  an 
insect. 

Dinah,  adored  for  her  beauty,  in  which  she  had  no  rival, 
and  admired  for  her  cleverness  by  the  most  gentlemanly  men 
of  the  place,  encouraged  their  admiration  by  conversations, 
for  which,  it  was  subsequently  asserted,  she  prepared  herself 
beforeliand.     Finding  herself  listened   to  witli   rapture,   she 
soon  began  to  listen  to  herself,  enjoyed  haranguing  her  audi- 
ence,  and  at  last   regarded  her  friends  as  the  chorus  in  a 
tragedy,  there  only  to  give  her  her  cues.     In  fact,  she  had  a 
very  fine  collection  of  phrases  and  ideas,  derived  either  from 
books  or  by  assimilating  the  opinions  of  her  companions,  and 
thus  became  a  sort  of  mechanical  instrument,  going  off  on  a 
round  of  phrases  as  soon  as  some  chance  remark  released  the 
spring.     To  do  her  justice,  Dinah  was  choke  full  of  knowl- 
edge, and    read  everything,   even   medical  books,  statistics, 
science,   and   jurisprudence;  for  she  did   not  know  how  to 
spend  her  days  when  she  had  reviewed  her  flower-beds  and 
given  her  orders  to  the  gardener.     Gifted  with  an  excellent 
memory,  and  the   talent  which  some  women   have  for  hitting 
on  the  right  word,   she  could  talk  on  any  subject  with  tlie 
lucidity  of  a  studied  style.     And  so  men  came  from  Cosne, 
from  la  Charite,  and  from  Nevers,  on  the  right  bank;  from 
Lere,  Vailiy,  Argent,  Blancafort,  and  Aubigny,  on  the  left 
bank,    to    be    introduced    to    Madame   de   La  Baudraye,    as 
they  used   in  Switzerland  to   be  introduced   to    Madame   de 
Stael.     Those  who  only  once  heard  the  round  of  tunes  emitted 
by  this  musical  snuff-box  went  away  amazed,  and  told  such 
wonders  of  Dinah  as   made   all  the  women  jealous  for  ten 
leagues  round. 


20  THE   MUSE    OF    THE   DEPARTMENT, 

There  is  an  indescribable  mental  headiness  in  the  admira- 
tion we  inspire,  or  in  the  effect  of  playing  a  part,  which  fends 
off  criticism  from  reaching  the  idol.  An  atmosphere,  pro- 
duced perhaps  by  unceasing  nervous  tension,  forms  a  sort  of 
halo,  through  which  the  world  below  is  seen.  How  otherwise 
can  we  account  for  the  perennial  good  faith  which  leads  to  so 
many  repeated  presentments  of  the  same  effects,  and  the  con- 
stant ignoring  of  warnings  given  by  children,  such  a  terror  to 
their  parents,  or  by  husbands,  so  familiar  as  they  are  with  the 
peacock  airs  of  their  wives?  Monsieur  de  La  Baudraye  had 
the  frankness  of  a  man  who  opens  an  umbrella  at  the  first  drop 
of  rain.  When  his  wife  was  started  on  the  subject  of  negro 
emancipation  or  the  improvement  of  convict  prisons,  he  would 
take  up  his  little  blue  cap  and  vanish  without  a  sound,  in  the 
certainty  of  being  able  to  get  to  Saint-Thibault  to  see  off  a 
cargo  of  puncheons,  and  return  an  hour  later  to  find  the  dis- 
cussion approaching  a  close.  Or,  if  he  had  no  business  to 
attend  to,  he  would  go  for  a  walk  on  the  mall,  whence  he 
commanded  the  lovely  panorama  of  the  Loire  valley,  and 
take  a  draught  of  fresh  air,  while  his  wife  was  performing  a 
sonata  in  words,  or  a  dialectical  duet. 

Once  fairly  established  as  a  Superior  Woman,  Dinah  was 
eager  to  prove  her  devotion  to  the  most  remarkable  creations 
of  art.  She  threw  herself  into  the  propaganda  of  the  romantic 
school,  including,  under  Art,  poetry  and  painting,  literature, 
and  sculpture,  furniture  and  the  opera.  Thus  she  became  a 
medisevalist.  Slie  was  also  interested  in  any  treasures  that 
dated  from  the  Renaissance,  and  employed  her  allies  as  so 
many  devoted  commission  agents.  Soon  after  she  was  mar- 
ried she  had  become  possessed  of  the  Rougets'  furniture,  sold 
at  Issoudun  early  in  1824.  She  purchased  some  very  good 
things  in  the  Nivernais  and  the  Haute-Loire.  At  the  New 
Year  and  on  her  birthday  her  friends  never  failed  to  give  her 
some  curiosities.  These  fancies  found  favor  in  the  eyes  of 
Monsieur  de  La  Baudraye  \   they  gave  him  an  appearance  of 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT.  21 

sacrificing  a  few  crowns  to  his  wife's  taste.  In  point  of  fact, 
his  land  mania  allowed  him  to  think  of  nothing  but  the  estate 
of  Anzy. 

These  "antiquities"  at  that  time  cost  much  less  than 
modern  furniture.  By  the  end  of  five  or  six  years  the  ante- 
room, the  dining-room,  the  two  drawing-rooms,  and  the 
boudoir  which  Dinah  had  arranged  on  the  first  floor  of  La 
Baudraye,  every  spot  even  to  the  staircase,  were  crammed 
with  masterpieces  collected  in  the  four  adjacent  departments. 
These  surroundings,  which  were  called  queer  by  the  neighbors, 
were  quite  in  harmony  with  Dinah,  All  these  marvels,  so 
soon  to  be  the  rage,  struck  the  imagination  of  the  strangers 
introduced  to  her;  they  came  expecting  something  unusual ; 
and  they  found  their  expectations  surpassed  when,  behind  a 
bower  of  flowers,  they  saw  these  catacombs  full  of  old  things, 
piled  up  as  Sommerard  used  to  pile  them — that  "  Old  Mor- 
tality "  of  furniture.  And  then  these  finds  served  as  so  many 
fountains  which,  turned  on  by  a  question,  played  off  an  essay 
on  Jean  Goujon,  Michel  Columb,  Germain  Pilon,  BouUe,  Van 
Huysum,  and  Boucher,  the  great  native  painter  of  Le  Berry; 
on  Clodion,  the  carver  of  wood,  on  Venetian  mirrors,  on 
Brustolone,  an  Italian  tenor  who  was  the  Michael  Angelo  of 
boxwood  and  holm  oak;  on  the  thirteenth,  fourteenth,  fifteenth, 
sixteenth,  and  seventeenth  centuries,  on  the  glazes  of  Bernard 
de  Palissy,  the  enamels  of  Petitot,  the  engravings  of  Albrecht 
Diirer — whom  she  called  Dur ;  on  illuminations  on  vellum,  on 
Gothic  architecture,  early  decorated,  flamboyant  and  pure — 
enough  to  turn  an  old  man's  brain  and  fire  a  young  man  with 
enthusiasm. 

Madame  de  La  Baudraye,  possessed  with  the  idea  of  waking 
up  Sancerre,  tried  to  form  a  so-called  literary  circle.  The 
presiding  judge.  Monsieur  Boirougc,  who  happened  to  have  a 
house  and  garden  on  his  hands,  part  of  the  Poi)inot-Chandier 
property,  favored  the  notion  of  this  coterie.  The  wily  judge 
talked    over   the    rules  of  the  society  with   Madame  de  La 


22  THE  MUSE    OF  THE  DEPARTMENT. 

Baudraye ;  he  proposed  to  figure  as  one  of  the  founders,  and 
to  let  the  house  for  fifteen  years  to  the  literary  club.  By  the 
time  it  had  existed  a  year  the  members  were  playing  domi- 
noes, billiards,  and  cards,  and  drinking  muUed-wine,  punch, 
and  liqueurs.  A  few  elegant  little  suppers  were  then  given, 
and  some  masked  balls  during  the  Carnival.  As  to  literature 
— there  were  the  newspapers.  Politics  and  business  were  dis- 
cussed. Monsieur  de  La  Baudraye  was  constantly  there — on 
his  wife's  account,  as  he  said  jestingly. 

This  result  deeply  grieved  the  Superior  Woman,  who  de- 
spaired of  Sancerre,  and  collected  the  wit  of  the  neighbor- 
hood in  her  own  drawing-room.  Nevertheless,  and  in  spite 
of  the  efforts  of  Messieurs  de  Chargcboeuf,  Gravier,  and  de 
Clagny,  of  the  Abbe  Buret  and  the  two  chief  magistrates,  of 
a  young  doctor  and  a  young  assistant  judge — all  blind  ad- 
mirers of  Dinah's — there  were  occasions  when,  weary  of  dis- 
cussion, they  allowed  themselves  an  excursion  into  the  do- 
main of  agreeable  frivolity  which  constitutes  the  common 
basis  of  worldly  conversation.  Monsieur  Gravier  called  this 
''from  grave  to  gay."  The  Abbe  Buret's  rubber  made 
another  pleasing  variety  on  the  monologues  of  the  oracle. 
The  three  rivals,  tired  of  keeping  their  minds  up  to  the  level 
of  the  "  high  range  of  discussion  " — as  they  called  their  con- 
versation— but  not  daring  to  confess  it,  would  sometimes  turn 
with  ingratiating  hints  to  the  old  priest. 

"Monsieur  le  Cure  is  dying  for  his  game,"  they  would 
say. 

The  wily  priest  lent  himself  very  readily  to  the  little  trick. 
He  protested : 

"We  should  lose  too  much  by  ceasing  to  listen  to  our 
inspired  hostess  !  "  and  so  he  would  incite  Dinah's  magnanim- 
ity to  take  pity  at  last  on  her  dear  abbe. 

This  bold  manoeuvre,  a  device  of  the  sub-prefect,  was 
repeated  with  so  much  skill  that  Dinah  never  suspected  her 
slaves  of  escaping  to  the  prison-yard,  so  to  speak,  of  the  card- 


THE  MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT.  23 

table ;  and  they  would  leave  her  one  of  the  younger  function- 
aries to  harry. 

One  young  landowner,  and  the  dandy  of  Sancerre,  fell  away 
from  Dinah's  good  graces  in  consequence  of  some  rash  demon- 
strations. After  soliciting  the  honor  of  admission  to  this 
little  circle,  where  he  flattered  himself  he  could  snatch  the 
blossom  from  the  constituted  authorities  who  guarded  it,  he 
was  so  unfortunate  as  to  yawn  in  the  middle  of  an  explanation 
Dinah  was  favoring  him  with — for  the  fourth  time,  it  is  true — 
of  the  philosophy  of  Kant.  Monsieur  de  la  Thaumassidre, 
the  grandson  of  the  historian  of  Le  Berry,  was  thenceforth 
regarded  as  a  man  entirely  bereft  of  soul,  brains,  understand- 
ing, and  wit. 

The  three  devotees,  her  slaves,  each  submitted  to  these 
exorbitant  demands  on  their  mind  and  attention,  in  hope  of 
a  crowning  triumph,  when  at  last  Dinah  should  become 
human  ;  for  neither  of  them  was  so  bold  as  to  imagine  that 
Dinah  would  give  up  her  innocence  as  a  wife  till  she  should 
have  lost  all  her  illusions.  In  1826,  when  she  was  surrounded 
by  adorers,  Dinah  completed  her  twentieth  year,  and  the 
Abbe  Duret  kept  her  in  a  sort  of  perfervid  Catholicism  ;  so 
her  worshipers  had  to  be  content  to  overwhelm  her  with  little 
attentions  and  small  services,  only  too  happy  to  be  taken  for 
the  carpet-knights  of  this  sovereign  lady  by  strangers  ad- 
mitted to  spend  an  evening  or  two  at  La  Baudraye. 

"Madame  de  La  Baudraye  is  a  fruit  that  must  be  left  to 
ripen."     This  was  the  opinion  of  Monsieur  Gravier,  who  was 


waiting. 


As  to  the  lawyer,  he  wrote  letters  four  pages  long,  to  which 
Dinah  replied  in  soothing  speech  as  she  walked,  leaning  on 
his  arm,  round  and  round  the  lawn  after  dinner. 

Madame  de  La  Baudraye,  thus  guarded  by  three  passions, 
and  always  under  the  eye  of  her  pious  mother,  escaped  the 
malignity  of  slander.  It  was  so  evident  to  all  Sancerre  that 
no  two  of  these  three  men  would  ever  leave  the  tliird  alone 


24  THE   MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT. 

with    Madame    de   La   Baudraye,  that    their  jealousy  was   a 
comedy  to  the  lookers-on. 

To  reach  Saint-Thibault  from  Caesar's  gate  there  is  a  way 
much  shorter  than  that  by  the  ramparts,  down  what  is  known 
in  mountainous  districts  as  a  conrsiire,  called  at  Sancerre  le 
Casse-cou,  or  Break-neck  Alley.  The  name  is  significant  as 
applied  to  a  path  down  the  steepest  part  of  the  hillside,  thickly 
strewn  with  stones,  and  shut  in  by  the  high  banks  of  the  vine- 
yards on  each  side.  By  way  of  the  Break-neck  the  distance 
from  Sancerre  to  La  Baudraye  is  much  abridged.  The  ladies 
of  the  place,  jealous  of  the  Sappho  of  Saint-Satur,  were  wont 
to  walk  on  the  mall,  looking  down  this  Longchamp  of  the 
bigwigs,  whom  they  would  stop  and  engage  in  conversation — 
sometimes  the  sub-prefect  and  sometimes  the  public  prosecutor 
— and  who  would  listen  with  every  sign  of  impatience  or  uncivil 
absence  of  mind.  As  the  turrets  of  La  Baudraye  are  visible 
from  the  mall,  many  a  younger  man  came  to  contemplate  the 
abode  of  Dinah  while  envying  the  ten  or  twelve  privileged 
persons  who  might  spend  their  afternoons  with  the  Queen  of 
the  neighborhood. 

Monsieur  de  La  Baudraye  was  not  slow  to  discover  the  ad- 
vantage he,  as  Dinah's  husband,  held  over  his  wife's  adorers, 
and  he  made  use  of  them  without  any  disguise,  obtaining  a 
remission  of  taxes,  and  gaining  two  lawsuits.  In  every  litiga- 
tion he  used  the  public  prosecutor's  name  with  such  good 
effect  that  the  matter  was  carried  no  further,  and,  like  all  un- 
dersized men,  he  was  contentious  and  litigious  in  business, 
though  in  the  gentlest  manner. 

At  the  same  time,  the  more  certainly  guiltless  she  was,  the 
less  conceivable  did  Madame  de  La  Baudraye's  position  seem 
to  the  prying  eyes  of  these  women.  Frequently,  at  the  house 
of  the  president  of  Boirouge,  the  ladies  of  a  certain  age  would 
spend  a  whole  evening  discussing  the  La  Baudraye  household, 
among  themselves  of  course.  They  all  had  suspicions  of  a 
mystery,  a  secret  such  as  always  interests  women  who  have 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT.  25 

had  some  experience  of  life.  And,  in  fact,  at  La  Baudraye  one 
of  those  slow  and  monotonous  conjugal  tragedies  was  being 
played  out  which  would  have  remained  for  ever  unknown  if 
the  merciless  scalpel  of  the  nineteenth  century,  guided  by  the 
insistent  demand  for  novelty,  had  not  dissected  the  darkest 
corners  of  the  heart,  or  at  any  rate  those  which  the  decency 
of  past  centuries  left  unopened.  And  that  domestic  drama 
sufficiently  accounts  for  Dinah's  immaculate  virtue  during  her 
early  married  life. 

A  young  lady,  whose  triumphs  at  school  had  been  the  out- 
come of  her  pride,  and  whose  first  scheme  in  life  had  been 
rewarded  by  a  victory,  was  not  likely  to  pause  in  such  a  bril- 
liant career.  Frail  as  Monsieur  de  La  Baudraye  might  seem, 
he  was  really  an  unhoped-for  good  match  for  Mademoiselle 
Dinah  Piedefer.  But  what  was  the  hidden  motive  of  this 
country  landowner  when,  at  forty-four,  he  married  a  girl  of 
seventeen;  and  what  could  his  wife  make  out  of  the  bargain? 
This  was  the  text  of  Dinah's  first  meditations. 

The  little  man  never  behaved  quite  as  his  wife  expected. 
To  begin  with,  he  allowed  her  to  take  the  five  precious  acres 
now  wasted  in  pleasure  grounds  round  La  Baudraye,  and  paid, 
almost  with  generosity,  the  seven  or  eight  thousand  francs 
required  by  Dinah  for  improvements  in  the  house,  enabling 
her  to  buy  the  furniture  at  the  Rougets'  sale  at  Issoudun,  and 
to  redecorate  her  rooms  in  various  styles — Mediaeval,  I^ouis 
XIV.,  and  Pompadour.  The  young  wife  found  it  difficult  to 
believe  that  Monsieur  de  La  Baudraye  was  so  miserly  as  he 
was  reputed,  or  else  she  must  have  great  influence  with  him. 
This  illusion  lasted  a  year  and  a  half. 

After  Monsieur  de  La  Baudraye's  second  journey  to  Paris, 
Dinah  discovered  in  him  the  Arctic  coldness  of  a  provincial 
miser  whenever  money  was  in  question.  The  first  time  she 
asked  for  supplies  she  played  the  sweetest  of  the  comedies  of 
which  Eve  invented  the  secret ;  but  the  little  man  put  it  plainly 

B 


26  THE  MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT. 

to  his  wife  that  he  gave  her  two  hundred  francs  a  month  for 
her  personal  expenses,  and  paid  Madame  Piedefer  twelve  hun- 
dred francs  a  year  as  a  charge  on  the  lands  of  La  Hautoy,  and 
that  this  was  two  hundred  francs  a  year  more  than  was  agreed 
to  under  the  marriage-settlement. 

'*I  say  nothing  of  the  cost  of  housekeeping,"  he  said  in 
conclusion.  "You  may  give  your  friends  cake  and  tea  in  the 
evening,  for  you  must  have  some  amusement.  But  I,  who 
spent  but  fifteen  hundred  francs  a  year  as  a  bachelor,  now 
spend  six  thousand,  including  rates  and  repairs,  and  this  is 
rather  too  much  in  relation  to  the  nature  of  our  property.  A 
vine-grower  is  never  sure  of  what  his  expenses  may  be — 
the  making,  the  duty,  the  casks — while  the  returns  depend 
on  a  scorching  day  or  a  sudden  frost.  Small  owners,  like  us, 
whose  income  is  far  from  being  fixed,  must  base  their  estimates 
on  their  minimum,  for  they  have  no  means  of  making  up  a 
deficit  or  a  loss.  What  would  become  of  us  if  a  wine  mer- 
chant became  bankrupt?  In  my  opinion,  promissory  notes 
are  so  many  cabbage-leaves.  To  live  as  we  are  living,  we 
ought  always  to  have  a  year's  income  in  hand  and  count  on 
no  more  than  two-thirds  of  our  returns." 

Any  form  of  resistance  is  enough  to  make  a  woman  vow  to 
subdue  it ;  Dinah  flung  herself  against  a  will  of  iron  padded 
round  with  gentleness.  She  tried  to  fill  the  little  man's  soul  with 
jealousy  and  alarms,  but  it  was  stockaded  with  insolent  confi- 
dence. He  left  Dinah,  when  he  went  to  Paris,  with  all  the 
convictions  of  Medor*  in  Angelique's  fidelity.  When  she 
affected  cold  disdain,  to  nettle  this  changeling  by  the  scorn  a 
courtesan  sometimes  shows  to  her  "protector,"  and  which 
acts  on  him  with  the  certainty  of  the  screw  of  a  winepress. 
Monsieur  de  La  Baudraye  gazed  at  his  wife  with  fixed  eyes, 
like  those  of  a  cat  which,  in  the  midst  of  domestic  broils, 
waits  till  a  blow  is  threatened  before  stirring  from  its  place. 
The  strange,  speechless  uneasiness  that  was  perceptible  under 

*  Medora,  in  "  Orl.indo  Furioso."         .        ^^, 


THE   MUSE    OF  THE   DEPARTMENT.  27 

his  mute  indifference  almost  terrified  the  young  wife  of  twenty ; 
she  could  not  at  first  understand  the  selfish  quiescence  of  this 
man,  who  might  be  compared  to  a  cracked  pot,  and  who,  in 
order  to  live,  regulated  his  existence  with  the  unchangeable 
regularity  which  a  clock-maker  requires  of  a  clock.  So  the 
little  man  always  evaded  his  wife,  while  she  always  hit  out,  as 
it  were,  ten  feet  above  his  head. 

Dinah's  fits  of  fury  when  she  saw  herself  condemned  never 
to  escape  from  La  Baudraye  and  Sancerre  are  more  easily 
imagined  than  described — she  who  had  dreamed  of  handling 
a  fortune  and  managing  the  dwarf  whom  she,  the  giant,  had 
at  first  humored  in  order  to  command.  In  the  hope  of  some 
day  making  her  appearance  on  the  greater  stage  of  Paris,  she 
accepted  the  vulgar  incense  of  her  attendant  knights  with  a 
view  to  seeing  Monsieur  de  La  Baudraye's  name  drawn  from 
the  electoral  urn  ;  for  she  supposed  him  to  be  ambitious,  after 
seeing  him  return  thrice  from  Paris,  each  time  a  step  higher 
on  the  social  ladder.  But  when  she  struck  on  the  man's 
heart,  it  was  as  though  she  had  tapped  on  marble  !  The  man 
who  had  been  receiver-general  and  referendary,  who  was  now 
master  of  appeals,  officer  of  the  Legion  of  Honor,  and  royal 
commissioner,  was  but  a  mole  throwing  up  its  little  hills 
round  and  round  a  vineyard  !  Tlien  some  lamentations  were 
poured  into  the  heart  of  the  public  prosecutor,  of  the  sub- 
prefect,  even  of  Monsieur  Gravier,  and  they  all  increased  in 
their  devotion  to  this  sublime  victim  ;  for,  like  all  women, 
she  never  mentioned  her  speculative  schemes,  and — again  like 
all  women — finding  such  speculation  vain,  she  ceased  to 
speculate. 

Dinah,  tossed  by  mental  storms,  was  still  undecided  when, 
in  the  autumn  of  1827,  the  news  was  told  of  the  purchase  by 
the  Baron  de  La  Baudraye  of  the  estate  of  Anzy.  Then  the 
little  old  man  showed  an  impulsion  of  pride  and  glee  which 
for  a  few  months  changed  the  current  of  his  wife's  ideas;  she 
fancied  there  was  a  hidden  vein  of  greatness  in  the  man  when 


'28  THE  MUSE   OF   THE  DEPARTMENT. 

she  found  him  applying  for  a  patent  of  entail.  In  his  triumph 
the  baron  exclaimed — 

"  Dinah,  you  shall  be  a  countess  yet  !  " 

There  was  then  a  patched-up  reunion  between  the  husband 
and  wife,  such  as  can  never  endure,  and  which  only  humiliated 
and  fatigued  a  woman  whose  apparent  superiority  was  unreal, 
while  her  unseen  superiority  was  genuine.  This  whimsical 
medley  is  commoner  than  people  think.  Dinah,  who  was 
ridiculous  from  the  perversity  of  her  cleverness,  had  really 
great  qualities  of  soul,  but  circumstances  did  not  bring  these 
rarer  powers  to  light,  while  a  provincial  life  debased  the  small 
change  of  her  wit  from  day  to  day.  Monsieur  de  La  Bau- 
draye,  on  the  contrary,  devoid  of  soul,  of  strength,  and  of 
wit,  was  fated  to  figure  as  a  man  of  character,  simply  by  pur- 
suing a  plan  of  conduct  which  he  was  too  feeble  to  change. 

There  was  in  their  lives  a  first  phase,  lasting  six  years, 
during  which  Dinah,  alas  1  became  utterly  provincial.  In 
Paris  there  are  several  kinds  of  women :  the  duchess  and  the 
financier's  wife,  the  ambassadress  and  the  consul's  wife,  the 
wife  of  the  minister  who  is  a  minister,  and  of  him  who  is  no 
longer  a  minister  ;  then  there  is  the  lady — quite  the  lady — of 
the  right  bank  of  the  Seine  and  of  the  left.  But  in  the 
country  there  is  but  one  kind  of  woman,  and  she,  poor  thing, 
is  the  provincial  woman. 

This  remark  points  to  one  of  the  sores  of  modern  society. 
It  must  be  clearly  understood :  France  in  the  nineteenth 
century  is  divided  into  two  broad  zones — Paris  and  the  prov- 
inces. The  provinces  jealous  of  Paris  ;  Paris  never  thinking 
of  the  provinces  but  to  demand  money.  Of  old,  Paris  was 
the  capital  of  the  provinces,  and  the  Court  ruled  the  capital ; 
now,  all  Paris  is  the  Court,  and  all  the  country  is  the  town. 

However  lofty,  beautiful,  and  clever  a  girl  born  in  any  de- 
partment of  France  may  be  on  entering  life,  if,  like  Dinah 
Piedefer,  she  marries  in  the  country  and  remains  there,  she 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT.  29 

inevitably  becomes  the  provincial  woman.  In  spite  of  every 
determination,  the  commonplace  of  second-rate  ideas,  the  in- 
difference to  dress,  the  culture  of  vulgar  people,  swamp  the 
sublimer  essence  hidden  in  the  youthful  plant ;  all  is  over,  it 
falls  into  decay.  How  should  it  be  otherwise  ?  From  their 
earliest  years  girls  bred  in  the  country  see  none  but  provin- 
cials ;  they  cannot  imagine  anything  superior,  their  choice 
lies  among  mediocrities  ;  provincial  fathers  marry  their  daugh- 
ters to  provincial  sons  ;  crossing  the  races  is  never  thought  of, 
and  the  brain  inevitably  degenerates,  so  that  in  many  country 
towns  intellect  is  as  rare  as  the  breed  is  hideous.  Mankind 
becomes  dwarfed  in  mind  and  body,  for  the  fatal  principle  of 
conformity  of  fortune  governs  every  matrimonial  alliance. 
Men  of  talent,  artists,  superior  brains — every  bird  of  brilliant 
plumage  flies  to  Paris.  The  provincial  women,  inferior  in 
herself,  is  also  inferior  through  her  husband.  How  is  she  to 
live  happy  under  this  crushing  twofold  consciousness? 

But  there  is  a  third  and  terrible  element  beside  her  con- 
genital and  conjugal  inferiority  which  contributes  to  make  the 
figure  arid  and  gloomy  ;  to  reduce  it,  narrow  it,  distort  it 
fatally.  Is  not  one  of  the  most  flattering  unctions  a  woman 
can  lay  to  her  soul  the  assurance  of  being  something  in  the 
existence  of  a  superior  man,  chosen  by  herself,  wittingly,  as  if 
to  have  some  revenge  on  marriage,  wherein  her  tastes  were  so 
little  consulted?  But  if  in  the  country  the  husbands  are  in- 
ferior beings,  the  bachelors  are  no  less  so.  When  a  provincial 
wife  commits  her  "little  sin,"  she  falls  in  love  with  some  so- 
called  handsome  native,  some  indigenous  dandy,  a  youth  who 
wears  gloves  and  is  supposed  to  ride  well ;  but  she  knows  at 
the  bottom  of  her  soul  that  her  fancy  is  in  pursuit  of  the  com- 
monplace, more  or  less  well  dressed.  Dinah  was  preserved 
from  this  danger  by  the  idea  impressed  upon  her  of  her  own 
superiority.  Even  if  she  had  not  been  so  carefully  guarded 
during  her  early  married  life  as  she  was  by  her  mother,  whose 
presence  never  weighed  upon  her  till  the  day  when  she  wanted 


30  THE  MUSE    OF   THE    DEPARTMENT. 

to  be  rid  of  it,  her  pride,  and  her  high  sense  of  her  own  des- 
tinies, would  have  protected  her.  Flattered  as  she  was  to  find 
herself  surrounded  by  admirers,  she  saw  no  lover  among  them. 
No  man  here  realized  the  poetical  ideal  which  she  and  Anna 
Grossetete  had  been  wont  to  sketch.  When,  stirred  by  the 
involuntary  temptations  suggested  by  the  homage  she  received, 
she  asked  herself:  "  If  I  had  to  make  a  choice,  whom  should  it 
be?"  she  owned  to  a  preference  for  Monsieur  de  Chargeboeuf, 
a  gentleman  of  good  family,  whose  appearance  and  manners 
she  liked,  but  whose  cold  nature,  selfishness,  and  narrow  am- 
bition, never  rising  above  a  prefecture  and  a  good  marriage, 
repelled  her.  At  a  word  from  his  family,  who  were  alarmed 
lest  he  should  be  killed  for  an  intrigue,  the  vicomte  had  al- 
ready deserted  a  woman  he  had  loved  in  the  town  where  he 
previously  had  been  sub-prefect. 

Monsieur  de  Clagny,  on  the  other  hand,  the  only  man 
whose  mind  appealed  to  hers,  whose  ambition  was  founded  on 
love,  and  who  knew  what  love  means,  Dinah  thought  perfectly 
odious.  When  Dinah  saw  herself  condemned  to  six  years' 
residence  at  Sancerre,  she  was  on  the  point  of  accepting  the 
devotion  of  Monsieur  le  Vicomte  de  Chargeboeuf;  but  he 
was  appointed  to  a  prefecture  and  left  the  district.  To  Mon- 
sieur de  Clagny's  great  satisfaction,  the  new  sub-prefect  was  a 
married  man  whose  wife  made  friends  with  Dinah.  The 
lawyer  had  now  no  rival  to  fear  but  Monsieur  Gravier.  Now 
Monsieur  Gravier  was  the  typical  man  of  forty  of  whom 
women  make  use  while  they  laugh  at  him,  whose  hopes  they 
intentionally  and  remorselessly  encourage,  as  we  are  kind  to 
a  beast  of  burden.  In  six  years,  among  all  the  men  who  were 
introduced  to  her  from  twenty  leagues  round,  there  was  not 
one  in  whose  presence  Dinah  was  conscious  of  the  excitement 
caused  by  personal  beauty,  by  a  belief  in  promised  happiness, 
by  the  impact  of  a  superior  soul,  or  the  anticipation  of  a  love 
affair,  even  an  unhappy  one. 

Thus  none  of  Dinah's  choicest  faculties  had  a  chance  of 


THE   MUSE    OF  THE  DEPARTMENT  31 

developing;  she  swallowed  many  insults  to  her  pride,  which 
was  constantly  suffering  under  the  husband  who  so  calmly 
walked  the  stage  as  supernumerary  in  the  drama  of  her  life. 
Compelled  to  bury  her  wealth  of  love,  she  showed  only  the 
surface  to  the  world.  Now  and  then  she  would  try  to  arouse 
herself,  try  to  form  some  manly  resolution  ;  but  she  was  kept 
in  leading  strings  by  the  need  for  money.  And  so,  slowly 
and  in  spite  of  the  ambitious  protests  and  grievous  recrimina- 
tions of  her  own  mind,  she  underwent  the  provincial  meta- 
morphosis here  described.  Each  day  took  with  it  a  fragment 
of  her  spirited  determination.  She  had  laid  down  a  rule  for 
the  care  of  her  person,  which  she  gradually  departed  from. 
Though  at  first  she  kept  up  with  the  fashions  and  the  little 
novelties  of  elegant  life,  she  was  obliged  to  limit  her  purchases 
by  the  amount  of  her  allowance.  Instead  of  six  hats,  caps,  or 
gowns,  she  resigned  herself  to  one  gown  each  season.  She 
was  so  much  admired  in  a  certain  bonnet  that  she  made  it  do 
duty  for  two  seasons.     So  it  was  in  everything. 

Not  infrequently  her  artistic  sense  led  her  to  sacrifice  the 
requirements  of  her  person  to  secure  some  bit  of  Gothic  furni- 
ture. By  the  seventh  year  she  had  come  so  low  as  to  think  it 
convenient  to  have  her  morning  dresses  made  at  home  by  the 
best  needlewoman  in  the  neighborhood  ;  and  her  mother,  her 
husband,  and  her  friends  pronounced  her  charming  in  these 
inexpensive  costumes  which  did  credit  to  her  taste.  Her  ideas 
were  imitated  !  As  she  had  no  standard  of  comparison,  Dinah 
fell  into  the  snares  that  surround  the  provincial  woman.  If  a 
Parisian  woman's  hips  are  loo  narrow  or  too  full,  her  inventive 
wit,  the  desire  to  please,  helps  her  to  find  some  heroic  remedy  ; 
if  she  has  some  defect,  some  ugly  spot,  or  small  disfigurement, 
she  is  capable  of  making  it  an  adornment ;  this  is  often  seen  ; 
but  the  provincial  woman — never!  If  her  waist  is  too  short 
and  her  figure  ill  balanced,  well,  she  makes  up  her  mind  to 
the  worst,  and  her  adorers — or  they  do  not  adore  her — must 
take  her  as  she  is,  while  the  Parisian  always  insists  on  being 


32  THE   MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT. 

taken  for  what  she  is  not.  Hence  the  preposterous  bustles, 
the  audacious  flatness,  the  ridiculous  fullness,  the  hideous  out- 
lines ingeniously  displayed,  to  which  a  whole  town  will  become 
accustomed,  but  which  are  so  astounding  when  a  provincial 
woman  makes  her  appearance  in  Paris  or  among  Parisians. 
Dinah,  who  was  extremely  slim,  showed  it  off  to  excess,  and 
never  knew  the  moment  when  it  became  ridiculous  ;  when, 
reduced  by  the  dull  weariness  of  her  life,  she  looked  like  a 
skeleton  in  clothes;  and  her  friends,  seeing  her  every  day, 
did  not  observe  the  gradual  change  in  her  appearance. 

This  is  one  of  the  natural  results  of  a  provincial  life.  In 
spite  of  marriage,  a  young  woman  preserves  her  beauty  for 
some  time,  and  the  town  is  proud  of  her ;  but  everybody  sees 
her  every  day,  and  when  people  meet  every  day  their  percep- 
tion is  dulled.  If,  like  Madame  de  La  Baudraye,  she  loses 
her  color,  it  is  scarcely  noticed  ;  or,  again,  if  she  flushes  a 
little,  that  is  intelligible  and  interesting.  A  little  neglect 
is  thought  charming,  and  her  face  is  so  carefully  studied,  so 
well  known,  that  slight  changes  are  scarcely  noticed,  and 
regarded  at  last  as  "beauty  spots."  When  Dinah  ceased  to 
have  a  new  dress  with  a  new  season,  she  seemed  to  have  made 
a  concession  to  the  philosophy  of  the  place. 

It  is  the  same  with  matters  of  speech,  choice  of  words  and 
ideas,  as  it  is  with  matters  of  feeling.  The  mind  can  rust  as 
well  as  the  body  if  it  is  not  rubbed  up  in  Paris ;  but  the  thing 
on  which  provincialism  most  sets  its  stamp  is  gesture,  gait,  and 
movement ;  these  soon  lose  the  briskness  which  Paris  con- 
stantly keeps  alive.  The  provincial  is  used  to  walk  and  move 
in  a  world  devoid  of  accident  or  change  ;  there  is  nothing  to 
be  avoided  ;  so  in  Paris  she  walks  on  as  raw  recruits  do,  never 
remembering  that  there  may  be  hindrances,  for  there  are  none 
in  her  way  in  her  native  place,  where  she  is  known,  where  she 
is  always  in  her  place,  and  every  one  makes  way  for  her. 
Thus  she  loses  all  the  charm  of  the  unforeseen. 

And  have  you  ever  noticed  the  effect  on  human  beings  of  a 


THE  MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT.  33 

life  in  common  ?  By  the  ineffaceable  instinct  of  simian 
mimicry  they  all  tend  to  cdpy  each  other.  Each  one,  without 
knowing  it,  acquires  the  gestures,  the  tone  of  voice,  the 
manner,  the  attitudes,  the  very  countenance  of  others.  In  six 
years  Dinah  had  sunk  to  the  pitch  of  the  society  she  lived  in. 
As  she  acquired  Monsieur  de  Clagny's  ideas  she  assumed  his 
tone  of  voice;  she  unconsciously  fell  into  masculine  manners 
from  seeing  none  but  men  ;  she  fancied  that  by  laughing  at 
what  was  ridiculous  in  them  she  was  safe  from  catching  it ; 
but,  as  often  happens,  some  smut  that  she  laughed  at  remained 
in  the  grain. 

A  Parisian  woman  sees  so  many  examples  of  good  taste  that 
a  contrary  result  ensues.  In  Paris  women  learn  to  seize  the 
hour  and  moment  when  they  may  appear  to  advantage ;  while 
Madame  de  La  Baudraye,  accustomed  to  take  the  stage,  ac- 
quired an  indefinable  theatrical  and  domineering  manner,  the 
air  of  d.  prima  donna  coming  forward  on  the  boards,  of  which 
ironical  smiles  would  soon  have  cured  her  in  the  capital. 

But  after  she  had  acquired  this  stock  of  absurdities,  and, 
deceived  by  her  worshipers,  imagined  them  to  be  added  graces, 
a  moment  of  terrible  awakening  came  upon  her  like  the  fall  of 
an  avalanche  from  a  mountain.  In  one  day  she  was  crushed 
by  a  frightful  comparison. 

In  1822,  after  the  departure  of  Monsieur  de  Chargeboeuf, 
she  was  excited  by  the  anticipation  of  a  little  pleasure  ;  she 
was  expecting  the  Baronne  de  Fontaine.  Anna's  husband, 
who  was  now  director-general  under  the  minister  of  finance, 
took  advantajre  of  leave  of  absence  on  the  occasion  of  his 
father's  death  to  fake  his  wife  to  Italy.  Anna  wished  to 
spend  a  day  at  Sancerre  with  her  school-friend.  This  meeting 
was  strangely  disastrous.  Anna,  who  at  school  had  been  far 
less  handsome  than  Dinah,  now,  as  Baronne  dc  Fontaine,  was 
a  thousand  times  handsomer  than  the  Baronne  de  La  Bau- 
draye, in  spite  of  her  fatigue  and  her  traveling  dress.  Anna 
stepped  out  of  an  elegant  traveling  chaise  loaded  with  Paris 


34  THE    JSIUSE    OE   THE   DEPARTMENT. 

milliners'  boxes,  and  she  had  with  her  a  lady's-maid,  whose 
airs  quite  frightened  Dinah.  All  'the  difference  between  a 
woman  of  Paris  and  a  provincial  was  at  once  evident  to 
Dinah's  intelligent  eye  ;  she  saw  herself  as  her  friend  saw  her 
— and  Anna  found  her  altered  beyond  recognition.  Anna 
spent  six  thousand  francs  a  year  on  herself  alone,  as  much  as 
kept  the  whole  household  at  La  Baudraye. 

In  twenty-four  hours  the  friends  had  exchanged  many  con- 
fidences; and  the  Parisian,  seeing  herself  so  far  superior  to 
the  phcenix  of  Mademoiselle  ChamaroUes'  school,  showed  her 
provincial  friend  such  kindness,  such  attentions,  while  giving 
her  certain  explanations,  as  were  so  many  stabs  to  Dinah, 
though  she  perfectly  understood  that  Anna's  advantages  all 
lay  on  the  surface,  while  her  own  were  for  ever  buried. 

When  Anna  had  left,  Madame  de  La  Baudraye,  by  this 
time  two-and-twenty,  fell  into  the  depths  of  despair. 

"What  is  it  that  ails  you?"  asked  Monsieur  de  Clagny, 
seeing  her  so  dejected. 

"Anna,"  said  she,  "  has  learned  to  live,  while  I  have  been 
learning  to  endure." 

A  tragi-comedy  was,  in  fact,  being  enacted  in  Madame  de 
La  Baudraye's  house,  in  harmony  with  her  struggles  over 
money  matters  and  her  successive  transformations — a  drama 
to  which  no  one  but  Monsieur  de  Clagny  and  the  Abbe  Duret 
ever  knew  the  clue,  when  Dinah  in  sheer  idleness,  or  perhaps 
sheer  vanity,  revealed  the  secret  of  her  anonymous  fame. 

Though  a  mixture  of  verse  and  prose  is  a  monstrous  anomaly 
in  French  literature,  there  must  be  exceptions  to  the  rule. 
This  tale  will  be  one  of  the  two  instances  in  these  Studies  of 
violation  of  the  laws  of  narrative ;  for  to  give  a  just  idea  of 
the  unconfessed  struggle  which  may  excuse,  though  it  cannot 
absolve  Dinah,  it  is  necessary  to  give  an  analysis  of  a  poem 
which  was  the  outcome  of  her  deep  despair. 

Her  patience  and  her  resignation  alike  broken  by  the  de- 
parture  of   the   Vicomte   de    Chargebceuf,    Dinah   took   the 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE  DEFARTZIENT.  35 

worthy  abbe's  advice  to  exhale  her  evil  thoughts  in  verse — a 
proceeding  which  perhaps  accounts  for  some  poets. 

"You  will  find  such  relief  as  those  who  write  epitaphs  or 
elegies  over  those  whom  they  have  lost.  Pain  is  soothed  in 
the  heart  as  lines  surge  up  in  the  brain." 

This  strange  production  caused  a  great  ferment  in  the  de- 
partments of  the  Allier,  the  Nievre,  and  the  Cher,  proud  to 
possess  a  poet  capable  of  rivalry  with  the  glories  of  Paris. 
•'•  Paquita  la  Seviilane,"  by  Jan  Diaz,  was  published  in  the 
'•Echo  du  Morvan,"  a  review  which  for  eighteen  months 
maintained  its  existence  in  spite  of  provincial  indifference. 
Some  knowing  persons  at  Nevers  declared  that  Jan  Diaz  was 
making  fun  of  the  new  school,  just  then  bringing  out  its 
eccentric  verse,  full  of  vitality  and  imagery,  and  of  brilliant 
effects  produced  by  defying  the  Muse  under  pretext  of  adapt- 
ing German,  English,  and  Romanesque  mannerisms. 

The  poem  began  with  this  ballad  : 

Ah!  if  you  knew  the  fragrant  jjlain, 
The  air,  the  sky,  of  golden  Spain, 

Its  fervid  noons,  its  balmy  spring, 
Sad  daughters  of  the  northern  gloom, 
Of  love,  of  heav'n,  of  native  home, 

You  never  would  presume  to  sing ! 

For  men  are  there  of  other  mould 
Than  those  who  live  in  this  dull  cold. 

And  there  to  music  low  and  sweet 
Sevillian  maids,  from  eve  till  dawn. 
Dance  lightly  on  the  moonlit  lawn 

In  satin  shoes,  on  dainty  feet. 

Ah,  you  would  be  the  first  to  blush 
Over  your  dancers'  romp  and  rush. 

And  your  too  hideous  carnival. 
That  turns  your  cheeks  all  chill  and  blue, 
And  skips  the  mud  in  hoh-nail'd  shoe — 

A  truly  dismal  festival. 


86  THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT. 

To  pale-faced  girls,  and  in  a  squalid  room, 
Paquita  sang  ;  the  murky  town  beneath 

Was  Rouen,  whence  the  slender  spires  rise 
To  chew  the  storm  with  teeth, 

Rouen  so  hideous,  noisy,  full  of  rage — 

And  here  followed  a  mngnificent  description  of  Rouen — 
where  Dinah  had  never  been — written  with  the  affected  bru- 
tality which,  a  little  later,  inspired  so  many  imitations  of 
Juvenal ;  a  contrast  drawn  between  the  life  of  a  manufacturing- 
town  and  the  careless  life  of  Spain,  between  the  love  of  heaven 
and  of  human  beauty,  and  the  worship  of  machinery ;  in  short, 
between  poetry  and  sordid  money-making. 

Then  Jan  Diaz  accounted  for  Paquita's  horror  of  Normandy 
by  saying — 

Seville,  you  see,  had  been  her  native  home; 

Seville,  where  skies  are  blue  and  evening  sweet. 
She,  at  thirteen,  the  sovereign  of  the  town, 

Had  lovers  at  her  feet. 

For  her  three  Toreadors  had  gone  to  death 

Or  victory ;   the  prize  to  be  a  kiss — 
One  kiss  from  those  red  lips  of  sweetest  breath — 

A  longed-for  touch  of  bliss ! 

The  features  of  the  Spanish  girl's  portrait  have  served  so 
often  as  those  of  the  courtesan  in  so  many  self-styled  poems, 
that  it  would  be  tiresome  to  quote  here  the  hundred  lines  of 
description.  To  judge  of  the  lengths  to  which  audacity  had 
carried  Dinah,  it  will  be  enough  to  give  the  conclusion.  Ac- 
cording to  Madame  de  La  Baudraye's  ardent  pen,  Paquita 
was  so  entirely  created  for  love  that  she  can  hardly  have  met 
with  a  knight  worthy  of  her;   for 

In  her  passionate  fire 
Every  man  would  have  swooned  from  the  heat. 
When  she  at  love's  feast,  in  her  fervid  desire, 
As  yet  bad  but  taken  h^r  seat. 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT.  37 

"And  yet  she  could  quit  the  joys  of  Seville,  its  woods  and 
fields  of  orange-trees,  for  a  Norman  soldier  who  won  her  love 
and  carried  her  away  to  his  hearth  and  home.  She  did  not 
weep  for  her  Andalusia,  the  Soldier  was  her  whole  joy.  But 
the  day  came  when  he  was  compelled  to  start  for  Russia  in 
the  footsteps  of  the  great  Emperor." 

Nothing  could  be  more  dainty  than  the  description  of  the 
parting  between  the  Spanish  girl  and  the  Norman  Captain 
of  Artillery,  who,  in  the  delirium  of  passion  expressed  with 
feeling  worthy  of  Byron,  exacted  from  Paquita  a  vow  of  abso- 
lute fidelity,  in  the  cathedral  at  Rouen,  in  front  of  the  altar  of 
the  Blessed  Virgin,  who 

Though  a  Maid  is  a  woman,  and  never  forgives 
When  lovers  are  false  to  their  vows. 

A  large  part  of  the  poem  was  devoted  to  describing  Paquita's 
sufferings  when  alone  in  Rouen  waiting  till  the  campaign  was 
over ;  she  stood  writhing  at  the  window  bars,  as  she  watched 
happy  couples  go  by ;  she  suppressed  the  passion  in  her  heart 
with  a  determination  that  consumed  her  ;  she  lived  on  nar- 
cotics and  exiiausted  herself  in  dreams. 

Almost  she  died,  but  still  her  heart  was  true; 

And  when  at  last  her  soldier  came  again. 
He  found  her  beauty  ever  fresh  and  new — 

He  had  not  loved  in  vain ! 

"But  he,  pale  and  frozen  by  the  cold  of  Russia,  chilled  to 
the  very  marrow,  met  his  yearning  fair  one  with  a  melancholy 
smile." 

The  whole  poem  was  written  up  to  this  situation,  which  was 
worked  out  with  such  vigor  and  boldness  as  too  entirely  justi- 
fied the  Abbe  Buret. 

Paquita,  on  reaching  the  limits  set  to  real  love,  did  not,  like 


38  THE   MUSE    OF    THE   DEPARTMENT. 

Julie  and  HeloYse,  throw  herself  into  the  ideal ;  no,  she  rushed 
into  the  paths  of  vice,  which  is,  no  doubt,  shockingly  natural ; 
but  she  did  it  without  any  touch  of  magnificence,  for  lack  of 
means,  as  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  in  Rouen  men  impas- 
sioned enough  to  place  Paquita  in  a  suitable  setting  of  luxury 
and  splendor.  This  horrible  realism,  emphasized  by  gloomy 
poetic  feeling,  had  inspired  some  passages  such  as  modern 
poetry  is  too  free  with,  rather  too  like  the  flayed  anatomical 
figures  known  to  artists  as  ecorches.  Then,  by  a  highly  philo- 
sophical revulsion,  after  describing  the  house  of  ill-fame  where 
the  Andalusian  ended  her  days,  the  writer  came  back  to  the 
ballad  at  the  opening  : 

Paquita  now  is  faded,  shrunk,  and  old, 
But  she  it  was  who  sang : 

"  If  you  but  knew  the  fragrant  plain, 
The  air,  the  sky,  of  golden  Spain,"  etc. 

The  gloomy  vigor  of  this  poem,  running  to  about  six  hundred 
lines,  and  serving  as  a  powerful  foil,  to  use  a  painter's  word, 
to  tiie  two  segtiidillas  at  the  beginning  and  end,  the  masculine 
utterance  of  an  almost  inexpressible  grief  alarmed  the  woman 
who  found  herself  admired  by  three  departments,  under  the 
black  cloak  of  the  anonymous.  While  she  fully  enjoyed  the 
intoxicating  delights  of  success,  Dinah  dreaded  the  malignity 
of  provincial  society,  where  more  than  one  woman,  if  the 
secret  should  slip  out,  would  certainly  find  points  of  resem- 
blance between  the  writer  and  Paquita.  Reflection  came  too 
late;  Dinah  shuddered  with  shame  at  having  made  "copy" 
of  some  of  her  woes. 

"Write  no  more,"  said  the  Abbe  Duret.  "You  will  cease 
to  be  a  woman  ;  you  will  be  a  poet." 

Moulins,  Nevers,  Bourges  were  searched  to  find  Jan  Diaz  ; 
but  Dinah  was  impenetrable.  To  remove  any  evil  impression, 
in  case  any  unforeseen  chance  should   betray  her  name,  she 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT.  39 

wrote  a  charming  poem  in  two  cantos  on  "The  Mass  Oak," 
a  legend  of  the  Nivernais: 

"  Once  on  a  time  the  folk  of  Nevers  and  the  folk  of  Saint- 
Saulge,  at  war  with  each  other,  came  at  daybreak  to  fight  a 
battle,  in  which  one  or  other  should  perish,  and  met  in  the 
forest  of  Faye.  And  then  there  stood  between  them,  under 
an  oak,  a  ]uiest  whose  aspect  in  the  morning  sun  was  so  com- 
manding that  the  foes  at  his  bidding  heard  mass  as  he  per- 
formed it  under  the  oak,  and  at  the  words  of  the  Gospel  they 
made  friends." 

The  oak  is  still  shown  in  the  forest  of  Fave. 

This  poem,  immeasurably  superior  to  "  Paquita  la  Sevil- 
lane,"  was  far  less  admired. 

After  these  two  attempts  Madame  de  La  Baudraye,  feeling 
herself  a  poet,  had  a  light  on  her  brow  and  a  flash  in  her  eyes 
that  made  her  handsomer  than  ever.  She  cast  longing  looks 
at  Paris,  aspiring  to  fame — and  fell  back  into  her  den  of  La 
Baudraye,  her  daily  squabbles  with  her  husband,  and  her  little 
circle,  where  everybody's  character,  intentions,  and  remarks 
were  too  well  known  not  to  have  become  a  bore.  Though 
she  found  relief  from  her  dreary  life  in  literary  work,  and 
poetry  echoed  loudly  in  her  empty  life,  though  she  thus 
found  an  outlet  for  her  energies,  literature  increased  her 
hatred  of  the  gray  and  ponderous  provincial  atmosphere. 

When,  after  the  Revolution  of  1830,  the  glory  of  George 
Sind  was  reflected  on  Le  Berry,  many  a  town  envied  La 
Chatre  the  privilege  of  having  given  birth  to  this  rival  of 
Madame  de  Stael  and  Camille  Maupin,  and  were  ready  to  do 
homage  to  minor  feminine  talent.  Tlius  there  arose  in  France 
a  vast  number  of  tenth  Muses,  young  girls  or  young  wives 
tempted  from  a  silent  life  by  the  bait  of  glory.  Very  strange 
doctrines  were  proclaimed  as  to  the  part  women  should  play 
in  society.  Though  the  sound  commonsense  which  lies  at 
the  root  of  the  French  nature  was  not  perverted,  women  were 


40  THE  MVSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT. 

suffered  to  express  ideas  and  profess  opinions  which  they 
would  not  have  owned  to  a  few  years  previously. 

Monsieur  de  Clagny  took  advantage  of  this  outbreak  of 
freedom  to  collect  the  works  of  Jan  Diaz  in  a  small  volume 
printed  by  Desroziers  at  Moulins.  He  wrote  a  little  notice 
of  the  author,  too  early  snatched  from  the  world  of  letters, 
which  was  amusing  to  those  who  were  in  the  secret,  but  which 
even  then  had  not  the  merit  of  novelty.  Such  practical  jokes, 
capital  so  long  as  the  author  remains  unknown,  fall  rather  flat 
if  subsequently  the  poet  stands  confessed. 

From  this  point  of  view,  however,  the  memoir  of  Jan  Diaz, 
born  at  Bourges  in  1807,  the  son  of  a  Spanish  prisoner,  may 
very  likely  some  day  deceive  the  compiler  of  some  Universal 
Biography.  Nothing  is  overlooked  ;  neither  the  names  of  the 
professors  at  the  Bourges  college,  nor  those  of  his  deceased 
schoolfellows,  such  as  Lousteau,  Bianchon,  and  other  famous 
natives  of  the  province,  who,  it  is  said,  knew  the  dreamy, 
melancholy  boy  and  his  precocious  bent  toward  poetry.  An 
elegy:  "  Tristesse  "  (Melancholy),  written  at  school;  the  two 
poems  "  Paquita  la  Sevillane  "  and  "  Le  Chene  de  la  Messe  " 
(The  Mass  Oak)  ;  three  sonnets,  a  description  of  the  cathedral 
and  the  house  of  Jacques  Coeur  at  Bourges,  with  a  tale  called 
"Carola,"  published  as  the  work  he  was  engaged  on  at  the 
time  of  his  death,  constituted  the  whole  of  these  literary  re- 
mains; and  the  poet's  last  hours,  full  of  misery  and  despair, 
could  not  fail  to  wring  the  hearts  of  the  feeling  public  of  the 
Nievre,  the  Bourbonnais,  the  Cher,  and  the  Morvan,  where 
he  died  near  Chateau-Chinon,  unknown  to  all,  even  to  the 
woman  he  had  loved  ! 

Of  this  little  yellow  paper  volume  two  hundred  copies  were 
printed  ;  one  hundred  and  fifty  were  sold — about  fifty  in  each 
department.  This  average  of  tender  and  poetic  souls  in  three 
departments  of  France  is  enough  to  revive  the  enthusiasm  of 
writers  as  to  the  French  spirit,  which  nowadays  is  more  apt  to 
expend  itself  in  business  than  in  books. 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT.  41 

'V\nien  Monsieur  de  Clagny  had  given  away  a  certain  num- 
ber of  copies,  Dinah  still  had  seven  or  eight,  wrapped  u})  in 
the  newspapers  which  had  published  notices  of  the  work. 
Twenty  copies  forwarded  to  th.e  Parii  papers  were  swamped  in 
the  editor's  offices.  Nathan  was  taken  in  as  well  as  several  of 
his  fellow-countrymen  of  Le  Berry,  and  wrote  an  article  on 
the  great  man,  in  which  he  credited  him  with  all  the  fine 
qualities  we  discover  in  those  who  are  dead  and  buried. 

Lousteau,  warned  by  his  former  schoolfellows,  who  could 
not  remember  Jan  Diaz,  waited  for  information  from  Sancerre, 
and  learned  that  Jan  Diaz  was  a  pseudonym  assumed  by  a 
woman. 

Then,  in  and  around  Sancerre,  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  be- 
came the  rage  ;  she  was  the  future  rival  of  George  Sand.  From 
Sancerre  to  Bourges  a  poem  was  praised  which,  at  any  other 
time,  would  certainly  have  been  hooted.  The  provincial 
public — like  every  French  public,  perhaps — does  not  share 
the  love  of  the  King  of  the  French  for  the  happy  medium  :  it 
lifts  you  to  the  skies  or  drags  you  in  the  mud. 

By  this  time  the  good  abbe,  Madame  de  La  Baudraye's 
counselor,  was  dead  ;  he  would  certainly  have  prevented  her 
rushing  into  public  life.  But  three  years  of  work  without 
recognition  weighed  on  Dinah's  soul,  and  she  accepted  the 
clatter  of  fame  as  a  substitute  for  her  disappointed  ambitions. 
Poetry  and  dreams  of  celebrity,  which  had  lulled  her  grief 
since  her  meeting  with  Anna  Grossctgte,  no  longer  sufficed  to 
exhaust  the  activity  of  her  morbid  heart.  The  Abbe  Duret, 
who  had  talked  of  the  world  when  the  voice  of  religion  was 
impotent,  who  understood  Dinah,  and  promised  her  a  happy 
future  by  assuring  her  that  God  would  compensate  her  for 
sufferings  bravely  endured — this  good  old  man  could  no  longer 
stand  between  the  opening  to  sin  and  the  handsome  young 
woman  he  had  called  his  daughter. 

The  wise  old  priest  had  more  than  once  endeavored  to  en- 
lighten Dinah  as  to  her  husband's  character,  telling  her  that 


42  THE  MUSE    OF  THE  DEPARTMENT. 

the  man  could  hate  ;  but  women  are  not  ready  to  believe  in 
such  force  in  weak  natures,  and  hatred  is  too  constantly  in 
action  not  to  be  a  vital  force.  Dinah,  finding  her  husband 
incapable  of  love,  denied  him  the  power  to  hate. 

"Do  not  confound  hatred  and  vengeance,"  said  the  abbe. 
"  They  are  two  quite  different  sentiments.  One  is  the  instinct 
of  small  minds  ;  the  other  is  the  outcome  of  law  which  great 
souls  obey.  God  is  avenged,  but  He  does  not  hate.  Hatred 
is  a  vice  of  narrow  souls;  they  feed  it  with  all  their  meanness, 
and  make  it  a  pretext  for  sordid  tyranny.  So  beware  of 
offending  Monsieur  de  La  Baudraye ;  he  would  forgive  an  in- 
fidelity, because  he  could  make  capital  of  it,  but  he  would  be 
doubly  implacable  if  you  should  touch  him  on  the  spot  so 
cruelly  wounded  by  Monsieur  Milaud  of  Nevers,  and  would 
make  your  life  unendurable." 

Now,  at  the  time  when  the  whole  countryside — Nevers  and 
Sancerre,  Le  Morvan  and  Le  Berry — was  priding  itself  on 
Madame  de  La  Baudraye,  and  lauding  her  under  the  name  of 
Jan  Diaz,  "little  La  Baudraye"  felt  her  glory  a  mortal  blow. 
He  alone  knew  the  secret  source  of  "  Paquita  la  Sevillane." 
When  this  terrible  work  was  spoken  of,  everybody  said  of 
Dinah — "  Poor  woman  !     Poor  soul  !  " 

The  women  rejoiced  in  being  able  to  pity  her  who  had 
so  long  oppressed  them  ;  never  had  Dinah  seemed  to  stand 
higher  in  the  eyes  of  the  neighborhood. 

The  shriveled  old  man,  more  wrinkled,  yellower,  feebler 
than  ever,  gave  no  sign  ;  but  Dinah  sometimes  detected  in 
his  eyes,  as  he  looked  at  her,  a  sort  of  icy  venom  which  gave 
the  lie  to  his  increased  politeness  and  gentleness.  She  under- 
stood at  last  that  this  was  not,  as  she  had  supposed,  a  mere 
domestic  squabble  ;  but  wlien  she  forced  an  explanation  with 
her  "insect,"  as  Monsieur  Gravier  called  him,  she  found  the 
cold,  hard  impassibility  of  steel.  She  flew  into  a  passion  ; 
she  reproached  him  for  her  life  these  eleven  years  past  ;  she 
made — intentionally — what  women  call  a  scene.     But  "  little 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT.  4S 

La  Baudraye "  sat  in  an  armchair  with  his  eyes  shut,  and 
listened  phlegmatically  to  the  storm.  And,  as  usual,  the 
dwarf  got  the  better  of  his  wife.  Dinah  saw  that  she  had 
done  wrong  in  writing  ;  she  vowed  never  to  write  another 
line,  and  she  kept  her  vow. 

Then  was  there  desolation  in  the  Sancerrois. 

"  Why  did  not  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  compose  any  more 
verses?"   was  the  universal  cry. 

At  this  time  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  had  no  enemies; 
every  one  rushed  to  see  her,  not  a  week  passed  without  fresh 
introductions.  The  wife  of  the  presiding  judge,  an  august 
bourgeoise,  7iee  Popinot-Chandier,  desired  her  son,  a  youth  of 
two-and-twenty,  to  pay  his  humble  respects  at  La  Baudraye, 
and  flattered  herself  that  she  might  see  her  Gatien  in  the  good 
graces  of  this  Superior  Woman.  The  words  Superior  Woman 
had  superseded  the  absurd  nickname  of  The  Sappho  of  Saint- 
Satur.  This  lady,  who  for  nine  years  had  led  the  opposition, 
was  so  delighted  at  the  good  reception  accorded  to  her  son 
that  she  became  loud  in  her  praises  of  the  Muse  of  Sancerre. 

"After  all,"  she  exclaimed,  in  reply  to  a  tirade  from 
Madame  de  Clagny,  who  hated  her  husband's  supposed  mis- 
tress, "she  is  the  handsomest  and  cleverest  woman  in  the 
whole  province  !  " 

After  scrambling  through  so  many  brambles  and  setting  o(T 
on  so  many  different  roads,  after  dreaming  of  love  in  splendor 
and  scenting  the  darkest  dramas,  thinking  such  terrible  joys 
would  be  cheaply  purchased  so  weary  was  she  of  her  dreary 
existence,  one  day  Dinah  fell  into  the  pit  she  had  sworn  to 
avoid.  Seeing  Monsieur  de  Clagny  always  sacrificing  himself, 
and  at  last  refusing  a  high  appointment  in  Paris,  where  his 
family  wanted  to  see  him,  she  said  to  herself:  "  He  loves  me  !  " 
She  vanquished  her  repulsion,  and  seemed  willing  to  reward 
so  much  constancy. 

It  was  to  this  impulse  of  generosity  on  her  part  that  a  coali- 
tion  was  due,   formed   in   Sancerre  to  secure   the  return    of 


44  THE  MUSE    OE   THE   DEPARTMENT. 

Monsieur  de  Clagny  at  the  next  elections.  Madame  de  La 
Baudraye  had  dreamed  of  going  to  Paris  in  the  wake  of  the 
new  deputy. 

But,  in  spite  of  the  most  solemn  promises,  the  hundred  and 
fifty  votes  to  be  recorded  in  favor  of  this  adorer  of  the  lovely 
Uinah — wlio  hoped  to  see  this  defender  of  the  widow  and  the 
orphan  wearing  the  gown  of  the  keeper  of  the  seals — figured  as 
an  imposing  minority  of  fifty  votes.  Tlie  jealousy  of  the 
president  of  Boirouge,  and  Monsieur  Gravier's  hatred,  for  he 
believed  in  the  candidate's  supremacy  in  Dinah's  heart,  had 
been  worked  upon  by  a  young  sub-prefect ;  and  for  this  worthy 
and  exemplary  deed  the  allies  got  the  young  man  made  a  pre- 
fect elsewhere. 

"I  shall  never  cease  to  regret,"  said  he,  as  he  quitted 
Sancerre,  "that  I  did  not  succeed  in  pleasing  Madame  de  La 
Baudraye ;  that  would  have  made  my  triumph  complete  !  " 

The  household  that  was  thus  racked  by  domestic  troubles 
was  calm  on  the  surface ;  here  were  two  ill-assorted  but  re- 
signed beings,  and  the  indescribable  propriety,  the  lie  that 
society  insists  on,  and  which  to  Dinah  was  an  unendurable 
yoke.  Why  did  she  long  to  throw  off  the  mask  she  had  worn 
for  twelve  years?  Whence  this  weariness  w^hich,  everyday, 
increased  her  hope  of  finding  herself  a  widow  ? 

The  reader  who  has  noted  all  the  phases  of  her  existence 
will  have  understood  the  various  illusions  by  which  Dinah, 
like  many  another  woman,  had  been  deceived.  After  an 
attempt  to  master  Monsieur  de  La  Baudraye,  she  had  indulged 
the  hope  of  becoming  a  mother.  Between  those  miserable 
disputes  over  household  matters  and  the  melancholy  convic- 
tion as  to  her  fate,  quite  a  long  time  had  elapsed.  Then, 
when  she  had  looked  for  consolation,  the  consoler.  Monsieur 
de  Chargeboeuf,  had  left  her.  Thus  the  overwhelming  tempta- 
tion which  commonly  causes  women  to  sin  had  hitherto  been 
absent.  For  if  there  are,  after  all,  some  women  who  make 
straight  for  unfaithfulness,  are  there  not  many  more  who  cling 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT.  45 

to  hope,  and  do  not  fall  till   they  have  wandered  long  in  a 
labyrinth  of  secret  woes? 

Such  was  Dinah.  She  had  so  little  impulse  to  fail  in  her 
duty,  that  she  did  not  care  enough  for  Monsieur  de  Clagny  to 
forgive  him  his  defeat. 

Then  the  move  to  the  Castle  of  Anzy,  the  rearrangement  of 
her  collected  treasures  and  curiosities,  which  derived  added 
value  from  the  splendid  setting  which  Philibert  de  Lorme 
seemed  to  have  planned  on  purpose  for  this  museum,  occupied 
her  for  several  months,  giving  her  leisure  to  meditate  one  of 
those  decisive  steps  that  startle  the  public,  ignorant  of  the 
motives  which,  however,  it  sometimes  discovers  by  dint  of 
gossip  and  suppositions. 

Madame  de  La  Baudraye  had  been  greatly  struck  by  the 
reputation  of  Lousteau,  who  was  regarded  as  a  lady's  man  of 
the  first  water  in  consequence  of  his  intimacies  among  act- 
resses;  she  was  anxious  to  know  him;  she  read  his  books, 
and  was  fired  with  enthusiasm,  less  perhaps  for  his  talents  than 
for  his  success  with  women  ;  and  to  attract  him  to  the  country, 
she  started  the  notion  that  it  was  obligatory  on  Sancerre  to 
return  one  of  its  great  men  at  the  elections.  She  made  Gatien 
Boirouge  write  to  the  great  physician,  Bianclion,  wlioni  he 
claimed  as  a  cousin  through  the  Popinots.  Then  she  persuaded 
an  old  friend  of  the  departed  Madame  Lousteau  to  stir  up  the 
journalist's  ambitions  by  letting  him  know  that  certain  persons 
in  Sancerre  were  firmly  bent  on  electing  a  deputy  from  among 
the  distinguished  men  in  Paris. 

Tired  of  her  commonplace  neighbors,  Madame  de  La 
Baudraye  would  thus  at  last  meet  really  illustrious  men,  and 
might  give  her  fall  the  lustre  of  fame. 

Neither  Lousteau  nor  Bianchon  replied  ;  they  were  waiting, 
perhaps,  till  the  holidays.  Bianchon,  who  had  won  his  pro- 
fessor's chair  the  year  before  after  a  brilliant  contest,  could 
not  leave  his  lectures. 

In  the  month  of  September,  when  the  vintage  was  at  its 


46  THE  MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT. 

height,  the  two  Parisians  arrived  in  their  native  province,  and 
found  it  absorbed  in  the  unremitting  toil  of  the  wine-cup  of 
1836;  there  could  therefore  be  no  public  demonstration  in 
their  favor.  "We  have  fallen  flat,"  said  Lousteau  to  his 
companion,  in  the  slang  of  the  stage. 

In  1836,  Lousteau,  worn  by  sixteen  years  of  struggle  in  the 
capital,  and  aged  quite  as  much  by  pleasure  as  by  penury, 
hard  work,  and  disappointments,  looked  eight-and-forty, 
though  h'-  was  no  more  than  thirty-seven.  He  was  already 
bald,  and  had  assumed  a  Byronic  air  in  harmony  with  his  early 
decay  and  the  lines  furrowed  in  his  face  by  over-indulgence 
in  champagne.  He  ascribed  these  signs-manual  of  dissipation 
to  the  severities  of  a  literary  life,  declaring  that  the  Press  was 
murderous;  and  he  gave  it  to  be  understood  that  it  consumed 
superior  talents,  so  as  to  lend  a  grace  to  his  exhaustion.  In 
his  native  town  he  thought  proper  to  exaggerate  his  affected 
contempt  of  life  and  his  spurious  misanthropy.  Still  his  eyes 
could  flash  with  fire  like  a  volcano  supposed  to  be  extinct,  and 
he  endeavored,  by  dressing  fashionably,  to  make  up  for  the 
lack  of  youth  that  might  strike  a  woman's  eye. 

Horace  Bianchon,  who  wore  the  ribbon  of  the  Legion  of 
Honor,  was  fat  and  burly,  as  beseems  a  fashionable  physician, 
with  a  patriarchal  air,  his  hair  thick  and  long,  a  prominent 
brow,  the  frame  of  a  hard  worker,  and  the  calm  expression  of 
a  philosopher.  This  somewhat  prosaic  personality  set  off  his 
more  frivolous  companion  to  advantage. 

The  two  great  men  remained  unrecognized  during  a  whole 
morning  at  the  inn  where  they  had  put  up,  and  it  was  only 
by  chance  that  Monsieur  de  Clagny  heard  of  their  arrival. 
Madame  de  La  Baudraye,  in  despair  at  this,  dispatched  Gatien 
Boirouge,  who  had  no  vineyards,  to  beg  the  two  gentlemen 
to  spend  a  few  days  at  the  Castle  of  Anzy.  For  the  last  year 
Dinali  had  played  the  chatelaine,  and  spent  the  winter  only 
at  La  Baudraye.     Monsieur  Gravier,  the   public  prosecutor, 


THE   MUSE    01'    THE   DEPARTMENT.  47 

the  presiding  judge,  and  Gatien  Boirouge  combined  to  give  a 
banquet  to  the  two  great  men,  to  meet  the  literary  personages 
of  the  town. 

On  hearing  that  the  beautiful  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  was 
Jan  Diaz,  the  Parisians  went  to  spend  three  days  at  Anzy, 
fetched  in  a  sort  of  wagonette  driven  bv  Gatien  himself.  The 
young  man,  under  a  genuine  illusion,  spoke  of  Madame  de  La 
Baudraye  not  only  as  the  handsomest  woman  in  those  parts,  a 
woman  so  superior  that  she  might  give  George  Sand  a  qualm, 
but  as  a  woman  who  would  produce  a  great  sensation  in  Paris. 
Hence  the  extreme  though  suppressed  astonishment  of  Doctor 
Bianchon  and  the  waggish  journalist  when  they  beheld,  on  the 
garden  steps  of  Anzy,  a  lady  dressed  in  thin  black  cashmere 
with  a  deep  tucker,  in  effect  like  a  riding-habit  cut  short,  for 
they  quite  understood  the  pretentiousness  of  such  extreme 
simplicity.  Dinah  also  wore  a  black  velvet  cap,  like  that  in 
the  portrait  of  Raphael,  and  below  it  her  hair  fell  in  thick 
curls.  This  attire  showed  off  a  rather  pretty  figure,  fine  eyes, 
and  handsome  eyelids  somewhat  faded  by  the  weariful  life  that 
has  been  described.  In  Le  Berry  the  singularity  of  this 
artistic  costume  was  a  cloak  for  the  romantic  affectations  of 
the  Superior  Woman. 

On  seeing  the  affectations  of  their  too  amiable  hostess — 
which  were,  indeed,  affectations  of  soul  and  mind — the  friends 
glanced  at  each  other  and  put  on  a  deeply  serious  expression 
to  listen  to  Madaine  de  La  Baudraye,  who  made  them  a  set 
speech  of  thanks  for  coming  to  cheer  the  monotony  of  her 
days.  Dinah  walked  her  guests  round  and  round  the  lawn, 
ornamented  with  large  vases  of  flowers,  which  lay  in  front  of 
the  Castle  of  Anzy. 

"  How  is  it,"  said  Lonsteau,  the  practical  joker,  "  that  so 
handsome  a  woman  as  yourself,  and  apparently  so  superior, 
should  have  remained  buried  in  the  country?  What  do  you 
do  to  make  life  endurable  ?  " 

"Ah!  that  is  the  crux,"  said  the  lady.     "It  is  unendur- 


48  THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT. 

able.  Utter  despair  or  dull  resignation — there  is  no  third 
alternative ;  that  is  the  arid  soil  in  which  our  existence  is 
rooted,  and  on  which  a  thousand  stagnant  ideas  fall  ;  they 
cannot  fertilize  the  ground,  but  they  supply  food  for  the 
etiolated  flowers  of  our  desert  souls.  Never  believe  in  indif- 
ference !  Indifference  is  either  despair  or  resignation.  Then 
each  woman  takes  up  the  pursuit  which,  according  to  her 
character,  seems  to  promise  some  amusement.  Some  rush 
into  jam-making  and  washing,  household  management,  the 
rural  joys  of  the  vintage  or  the  harvest,  bottling  fruit,  em- 
broidering handkerchiefs,  the  cares  of  motherhood,  the  in- 
trigues of  a  country  town.  Otliers  torment  a  much-enduring 
piano,  which,  at  the  end  of  seven  years,  sounds  like  an  old 
kettle,  and  ends  its  asthmatic  life  at  the  Castle  of  Anzy.  Some 
pious  dames  talk  over  the  different  brands  of  the  Word  of 
God — the  Abbe  Fritaud  as  compared  with  the  Abbe  Guinard. 
They  play  cards  in  the  evening,  dance  with  the  same  partners 
for  twelve  years  running,  in  the  same  rooms,  at  the  same 
dates.  This  delightful  life  is  varied  by  solemn  walks  on  the 
mall,  visits  of  politeness  among  the  women,  who  ask  each 
other  where  they  bought  their  gowns. 

"  Conversation  is  bounded  on  the  South  by  remarks  on  the 
intrigues  lying  hidden  under  the  stagnant  water  of  provincial 
life,  on  the  North  by  proposed  marriages,  on  the  West  by  jeal- 
ousies, and  on  the  East  by  sour  remarks. 

"And  so,"  she  went  on,  striking  an  attitude,  "you  see  a 
woman  wrinkled  at  nine-and-twenty,  ten  years  before  the  time 
fixed  by  the  rules  of  Doctor  Bianchon,  a  woman  whose  skin  is 
ruined  at  an  early  age,  who  turns  as  yellow  as  a  quince  when 
she  is  yellow  at  all — we  have  seen  some  turn  green.  When 
we  have  reached  that  point,  we  try  to  justify  our  normal  con- 
dition ;  then  we  turn  and  rend  the  terrible  passions  of  Paris 
with  teeth  as  sharp  as  rats'  teeth.  We  have  Puritan  women 
here,  sour  enough  to  tear  the  laces  of  Parisian  finery,  and  eat 
out  all  the  poetry  of  your  Parisian  beauties,  who  undermine 


THE   MUSE    OF    THE   DEPARTMENT.  49 

the  happiness  of  others  while  they  cry  up  their  walnuts  and 
rancid  bacon,  glorify  this  squalid  mouse-hole,  and  the  dingy 
color  and  conventual  smell  of  our  delightful  life  at  Sancerre." 

"  I  admire  such  courage,  madame,"  said  Bianchon.  "When 
we  have  to  endure  such  misfortunes,  it  is  well  to  have  tlie  wit 
to  make  a  virtue  of  necessity." 

Amazed  at  the  brilliant  move  by  which  Dinah  thus  placed 
provincial  life  at  the  mercy  of  her  guests,  in  anticipation  of 
their  sarcasms,  Gatien  Boirouge  nudged  Lousteau's  elbow, 
with  a  glance  and  a  smile,  which  said : 

"  Well  !   did  I  say  too  much  ?  " 

"But,  madame,"  said  Lousteau,  "you  are  proving  that  we 
are  still  in  Paris.  I  shall  steal  this  gem  of  description  ;  it 
will  be  worth  ten  francs  to  me  in  an  article." 

"Oh,  monsieur!"  she  retorted,  "never  trust  provincial 
women." 

"  And  why  not  ?  "  said  Lousteau. 

Madame  de  La  Baudraye  was  wily  enough — an  innocent 
form  of  cunning,  to  be  sure — to  sliow  the  two  Parisians,  one 
of  whom  she  would  choose  to  be  her  conqueror,  the  snare  into 
which  he  would  fall,  reflecting  that  she  would  have  the  upper 
hand  at  the  moment  when  he  should  cease  to  see  it. 

"  When  you  first  come,"  said  she,  "  you  laugh  at  us.  Then 
when  you  have  forgotten  the  impression  of  Paris  brilliancy, 
and  see  us  in  our  own  sphere,  you  pay  court  to  us,  if  only  as 
a  pastime.  And  you,  who  are  famous  for  your  past  passions, 
will  be  the  object  of  attentions  which  will  flatter  you.  Then 
take  care  !  "  cried  Dinah,  with  a  coquettish  gesture,  raising 
herself  above  provincial  absurdities  and  Lousteau's  irony  by 
lier  own  sarcastic  speech.  "  When  a  poor,  little  country-bred 
woman  has  an  eccentric  passion  for  some  superior  man,  some 
Parisian  wiio  has  wandered  into  the  provinces,  it  is  to  her 
something  more  than  a  sentiment ;  she  makes  it  her  occupa- 
tion and  part  of  all  her  life.  There  is  nothing  more  dangerous 
than  the  attachment  of  such  a  woman  ;  she  compares,  she 
4 


50  THE  MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT. 

studies,  she  reflects,  she  dreams;  and  she  will  not  give  up  her 
dream,  she  thinks  still  of  the  man  she  loves  when  he  has  ceased 
to  think  of  her. 

"Now  one  of  the  catastrophes  that  weigh  most  heavily  on 
a  woman  in  the  provinces  is  that  abrupt  termination  of  her 
passion  which  is  so  often  seen  in  England.  In  the  countr}-, 
a  life  under  minute  observation  as  keen  as  an  Indian's  com- 
pels a  woman  either  to  keep  on  the  rails  or  to  start  aside  like 
a  steam  engine  wrecked  by  an  obstacle.  The  strategies  of 
love,  the  coquetting  which  form  half  the  composition  of  a 
Parisian  woman,  are  utterly  unknown  here." 

''That  is  true,"  said  Lousteau.  "There  is  in  a  country- 
bred  woman's  heart  a  store  of  surprises,  as  in  some  toys." 

"  Dear  me  !  "  Dinah  went  on,  "a  woman  will  have  spoken 
to  you  three  times  in  the  course  of  a  winter,  and,  without  your 
knowing  it,  you  will  be  lodged  in  her  heart.  Then  comes  a 
picnic,  an  excursion,  what  not,  and  all  is  said — or,  if  you 
prefer  it,  all  is  done  !  This  conduct,  which  seems  odd  to  un- 
observing  persons,  is  really  very  natural.  A  poet,  such  as  you 
are,  or  a  philosopher,  an  observer,  like  Doctor  Bianchon,  in- 
stead of  vilifying  the  provincial  woman  ar.d  believing  her 
depraved,  would  be  able  to  guess  the  wonderful  unrevealed 
poetry,  every  chapter,  in  sliort,  of  the  sweet  romance  of  which 
the  last  phase  falls  to  the  benefit  of  some  happy  sub-lieutenant 
or  some  provincial  bigwig." 

"The  provincial  women  I  have  met  in  Paris,"  said  Lous- 
teau, "were,  in  fact,  rapid  in  their  proceedings " 

"My  word,  they  are  strange,"  said  the  lady,  giving  a  sig- 
nificant shrug  of  her  shoulders. 

"They  are  like  the  playgoers  wlio  book  for  the  second  per- 
formance, feeling  sure  that  the  piece  will  not  fail,"  replied  the 
journalist. 

"And  what  is  the  cause  of  all  these  woes?"  asked  Bian- 
chon. 

"Paris  is  the  monster  that  brings  us  grief,"  replied  the 


THE   MUSE    Of   THE   DEPARIMENT.  51 

Superior  Woman.  "  The  evil  is  seven  leagues  round,  and 
devastates  the  whole  land.  Provincial  life  is  not  self-existent. 
It  is  only  when  a  nation  is  divided  into  fifty  minor  states  that 
each  can  have  a  physiognomy  of  its  own,  and  then  a  woman 
reflects  the  glory  of  the  sphere  wherein  she  reigns.  This  social 
phenomenon,  I  am  told,  may  be  seen  in  Italy,  Switzerland, 
and  Germany  ;  but  in  France,  as  in  every  country  where  there 
is  but  one  capital,  a  dead-level  of  manners  must  necessarily 
result  from  centralization." 

"  Then  you  would  say  that  manners  could  only  recover 
their  individuality  and  native  distinction  by  the  formation  of  a 
federation  of  French  states  into  one  empire?"  said  Lousteau. 

"That  is  hardly  to  be  wished,  for  France  would  have  to 
conquer  too  many  countries,"  said  Bianchon. 

"This  misfortune  is  unk;  -wn  to  England,"  exclaimed 
Dinah.  "  London  does  not  exert  such  tyranny  as  that  by 
which  Paris  oppresses  France — for  which,  indeed,  French  in- 
genuity will  at  last  find  a  remedy ;  however,  it  has  a  worse 
disease  in  its  vile  hypocrisy,  which  is  a  far  greater  evil  !  " 

"The  English  aristocracy,"  said  Lousteau, .  hastening  to 
put  a  word  in,  for  he  foresaw  a  Byronic  paragraph,  "has  the 
advantage  over  ours  of  assimilating  every  form  of  superiority  ; 
it  lives  in  the  midst  of  magnificent  parks;  it  is  in  London  for 
no  more  than  two  months.  It  lives  in  the  country,  flourish- 
ing there,  and  making  it  flourish." 

"Yes,"  said  Madame  de  la  Baudraye,  "London  is  the 
capital  of  trade  and  speculation,  and  the  centre  of  govern- 
ment. The  aristocracy  hold  a  '  meet '  there  for  sixty  days 
only ;  it  gives  and  takes  the  passwords  of  the  day,  looks  in  on 
the  legislative  cookery,  reviews  the  girls  to  marry,  the  car- 
riages to  be  sold,  exchanges  greetings,  and  is  away  again  ; 
and  is  so  far  from  amusing  that  it  cannot  bear  itself  for  more 
than  the  few  days  known  as  '  the  season.'  " 

"  Hence,"  said  Lousteau,  hoping  to  stop  this  nimble  tongue 
by  an  epigram,  "  in  perfidious  Albion,  as  the  '  Constitutionncl ' 


52  THE  MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT. 

has  it,  you  may  happen  to  meet  a  charming  woman  in  any 
part  of  the  kingdom," 

"But  charming  E nglishvf omtxil^^  replied  Madame  de  la 
Baudraye  with  a  smile.  "  Here  is  my  mother,  I  will  intro- 
duce you,"  said  she,  seeing  Madame  Piedefer  coming  toward 
them. 

Having  introduced  the  two  Paris  lions  to  the  ambitious 
skeleton  that  called  itself  woman  under  the  name  of  Madame 
Piedefer — a  tall,  lean  personage  with  a  red  face,  teeth  that 
were  doubtfully  genuine,  and  hair  that  was  undoubtedly  dyed, 
Dinah  left  her  visitors  to  themselves  for  a  few  minutes. 

"Well,"  said  Gatien  to  Lousteau,  "what  do  you  think  of 
her?" 

"  I  think  that  the  clever  woman  of  Sancerre  is  simply  the 
greatest  chatterbox,"  replied  the  journalist. 

"A  woman  who  wants  to  see  you  deputy  !  "  cried  Gatien. 
"An  angel  !  " 

"Forgive  me,  I  forgot  you  were  in  love  with  her,"  said 
Lousteau.  "Forgive  the  cynicism  of  an  old  scamp.  Ask 
Bianchon  ;  I  have  no  illusions  left.  I  see  things  as  they  are. 
The  woman  has  evidently  dried  up  her  mother  like  a  partridge 
left  to  roast  at  too  fierce  a  fire." 

Gatien  de  Boirouge  contrived  to  let  Madame  de  La  Bau- 
draye know  what  the  journalist  had  said  of  her  in  the  course 
of  the  dinner,  which  was  copious,  not  to  say  splendid,  and 
the  lady  took  care  not  to  talk  too  much  while  it  was  proceed- 
ing. This  lack  of  conversation  betrayed  Gatien's  indiscretion. 
Etienne  tried  to  regain  his  footing,  but  all  Dinah's  advances 
were  directed  to  Bianchon. 

However,  half-way  through  the  evening,  the  baroness  was 
gracious  to  Lousteau  again.  Have  you  never  observed  what 
great  meannesses  may  be  committed  for  small  ends?  Thus 
the  haughty  Dinah,  who  would  not  sacrifice  herself  for  a  fool, 
who  in  the  deptlis  of  the  country  led  such  a  wretched  life  of 
struggles,  of  suppressed  rebellion,  of  unuttered  poetry,  who  to 


THE  MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT.  53 

get  away  from  Lousteau  had  climbed  the  highest  and  steepest 
peak  of  her  scorn,  and  who  would  not  have  come  down  if  she 
had  seen  the  sham  Byron  at  her  feet,  suddenly  stepped  off  it  as 
she  recollected  her  album. 

Madame  de  La  Baudraye  had  caught  the  mania  for  auto- 
graphs ;  she  possessed  an  oblong  volume  which  deserved  the 
i:!ame  of  album  better  than  most,  as  two-thirds  of  the  pages 
were  still  blank.  The  Baronne  de  Fontaine,  who  had  kept  it 
for  three  months,  had  with  great  difficulty  obtained  a  line 
from  Rossini,  six  bars  written  by  Meyerbeer,  the  four  lines 
that  Victor  Hugo  writes  in  everv  album,  a  verse  from  Lamar- 
tine,  a  few  words  from  Beranger  :  Calypso  ne  pouvait  se  consoler 
du  depart  d'  Ulysse  (the  first  words  of  •'  Telemaque  ")  written 
by  George  Sand,  Scribe's  famous  lines  on  the  Umbrella,  a 
sentence  from  Charles  Nodier,  an  outline  of  distance  by  Jules 
Dupre,  the  signature  of  David  d'Angcrs,  and  three  notes  writ- 
ten by  Hector  Berlioz.  Monsieur  de  Clagny,  during  a  visit 
to  Paris,  added  a  song  by  Lacenaire — a  much-coveted  auto- 
graph, two  lines  from  Fieschi,  and  an  extremely  short  note 
from  Napoleon,  which  were  pasted  on  to  pages  of  the  album. 
Then  Monsieur  Gravier,  in  the  course  of  a  tour,  had  persuaded 
Mademoiselle  Mars  to  write  her  name  on  this  album,  with 
Mademoiselles  Georges,  Taglioni,  and  Grisi.  and  some  distin- 
guished actors,  such  as  Frederick  Lemaitre,  Monrose,  Boufif^, 
Rubini,  Lablache,  Nourrit,  and  Arna1  ;  for  he  knew  a  set  of 
old  fellows  brought  up  in  the  seraglio,  as  they  phrased  it,  who 
did  him  this  favor. 

This  beginning  of  a  collection  was  all  the  more  precious  to 
Dinah  because  she  was  the  only  person  for  ten  leagues  round 
who  owned  an  album.  Within  the  last  two  years,  however, 
several  young  ladies  had  acquired  such  books,  in  which  they 
made  their  friends  and  acquaintances  write  more  or  less  absurd 
quotations  or  sentiments.  You  who  spend  your  lives  in  col- 
lecting autographs,  simple  and  happy  souls,  like  Dutch  tulip 
fanciers,  you  will  excuse  Dinah  when,  in  her  fear  of  not  keep- 


54  THE   MUKE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT. 

ing  lier  guests  more  than  two  days,  she  begged  Bianchon  to 
enrich  the  volume  she  handed  to  him  with  a  few  lines  of  his 
writing. 

The  doctor  made  Lousteau  smile  by  showing  him  this  sen- 
tence on  the  first  page — 

"What  makes  the  populace  dangerous  is  that  it  has  in  its 
pocket  an  absolution  for  every  crime. 

"J.  B.  DE  Clagnv." 

"We  will  second  the  man  who  is  brave  enough  to  plead  in 
favor  of  the  Monarchy,"  Desplein's  great  pupil  whispered  to 
Lousteau,  and  he  wrote  below — 

"  The  distinction  between  Napoleon  and  a  water-carrier  is 
evident  only  to  Society  ;  Nature  takes  no  account  of  it.  Thus 
Democracy,  which  resists  inequality,  constantly  appeals  to 
Nature. 

"H.  Bianchon." 

"Ah  !  "  cried  Dinah,  amazed,  "  you  rich  men  take  a  gold- 
piece  out  of  your  purse  as  poor  men  bring  out  a  farthing.  I 
do  not  know,"  she  went  on,  turning  to  Lousteau,  "whether 
it  is  taking  an  unfair  advantage  of  a  guest  to  hope  for  a  few 
lines " 

"  Nay,  madame,  you  flatter  me.  Bianchon  is  a  great  man, 
but  I  am  too  insignificant  !  Twenty  years  hence  my  name 
will  be  more  difficult  to  identify  than  that  of  the  public  prose- 
cutor whose  axiom,  written  in  your  album,  will  designate  him 
as  an  obscurer  Montesquieu.  And  I  should  want  at  least 
twenty-four  hours  to  improvise  some  sufficiently  bitter  reflec- 
tions, for  I  could  only  describe  what  I  feel." 

"  I  wish  you  needed  a  fortnight,"  said  Madame  de  La  Bau- 
dra3'e  graciously,  as  she  handed  him  the  book.  "  I  should 
keep  you  here  all  the  longer." 


THE   MUSE    OE   THE   DEPARTMENT.  55 

At  five  next  morning  all  the  party  in  the  Anzy  manor-house 
were  astir,  little  La  Baudraye  having  arranged  a  day's  sport 
for  the  Parisians — less  for  their  pleasure  than  to  gratify  his 
own  conceit.  He  was  delighted  to  make  them  walk  over  the 
twelve  hundred  acres  of  waste  land  that  he  was  intending  to 
reclaim,  an  undertaking  that  would  cost  some  hundred  thou- 
sand francs,  but  which  might  yield  an  increase  of  thirty  to 
sixty  thousand  francs  a  year  in  the  returns  of  the  estate  of 
Anzv. 

"  Do  you  know  why  the  public  prosecutor  has  not  come 
out  with  us?"  asked  young  Gatien  Boirouge  of  Monsieur 
Gravier. 

"Why,  he  told  us  that  he  was  obliged  to  sit  to-day;  the 
minor  cases  are  before  the  court,"  replied  the  other, 

"And  did  you  believe  that?"  cried  Gatien.  "Well,  my 
papa  said  to  me :  '  Monsieur  Lebas  will  not  join  you  early,  for 
Monsieur  de  Clagny  has  begged  him  as  his  deputy  to  sit  for 
him!'" 

"  Indeed  !  "  said  Gravier,  changing  countenance.  "And 
Monsieur  de  La  Baudraye  is  gone  to  La  Charite  !  " 

"  But  why  do  you  meddle  in  such  matters  ?  "  said  Bianchon 
to  Gatien. 

"Horace  is  right,"  said  Lousteau.  "I  cannot  imagine 
why  you  trouble  your  heads  so  much  about  each  other ;  you 
waste  your  time  in  frivolities." 

Horace  Bianchon  looked  at  Etienne  Lousteau,  as  much  as 
to  say  that  newspaper  epigrams  and  the  satire  of  the  "  funny 
column  "  were  incomprehensible  at  Sancerre. 

On  reaching  a  copse.  Monsieur  Gravier  left  the  two  great 
men  and  Gatien,  under  the  guidance  of  a  keeper,  to  make 
their  way  through  a  little  ravine. 

"  Well,  we  must  wait  for  Monsieur  Gravier,"  said  Bianchon, 
when  they  had  reached  a  clearing. 

"You  may  be  a  great  physician,"  said  Gatien,  "but  you 
are  ignorant  of  provincial  lif«.     You  mean  to  wait  for  Mon- 


66  THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT. 

sieur  Graviei  ?     By  this  time  he  is  running  like  a  hare,  in  spite 
of  his  little  round   stomach ;    he   is  within   twenty  minutes  of 

Anzy  by  now "     Gatien  looked  at  his  watch.      "Good! 

he  will  be  just  in  time." 

"Where?" 

"At  the  castle  for  breakfast,"  replied  Gatien.  "Do  you 
suppose  I  could  rest  easy  if  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  were 
alone  with  Monsieur  de  Clagny  ?  There  are  two  of  them  now ; 
they  will  keep  an  eye  on  each  other.  Dinah  will  be  well 
guarded." 

"Ah,  ha!  Then  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  has  not  yet 
made  up  her  mind?"  said  Lousteau. 

"  So  mamma  thinks.  For  my  part,  I  am  afraid  that  Mon- 
sieur de  Clagny  has  at  last  succeeded  in  bewitching  Madame 
de  La  Baudraye.  If  he  has  been  able  to  show  her  that  he  had 
any  chance  of  putting  on  the  robes  of  the  keeper  of  tlie  seals, 
he  may  have  hidden  his  moleskin  complexion,  his  terrible 
eyes,  his  touzled  mane,  his  voice  like  a  hoarse  crier's,  his 
bony  figure,  like  that  of  a  starveling  poet,  and  have  assumed 
all  the  charms  of  Adonis.  If  Dinah  sees  Monsieur  de  Clas:nv 
as  attorney-general,  she  may  see  him  as  a  handsome  youth. 
Eloquence  has  great  privileges.  Beside,  Madame  de  La  Bau- 
draye is  full  of  ambition.  She  does  not  like  Sancerre,  and 
dreams  of  the  glories  of  Paris." 

"But  what  interest  have  you  in  all  this?"  said  Lousteau. 
"If  she  is  in  love  with  the  public  prosecutor!  Ah!  you 
think  she  will  not  love  him  for  long,  and  you  hope  to  succeed 
him." 

"You  who  live  in  Paris,"  said  Gatien,  "meet  as  many 
different  women  as  there  are  days  in  the  year.  But  at  San- 
cerre, where  there  are  not  half  a  dozen,  and  where,  of  those  six, 
five  set  up  for  the  most  extravagant  virtue,  when  the  hand- 
somest of  them  all  keeps  you  at  an  infinite  distance  by  looks 
as  scornful  as  though  she  were  of  the  blood  royal,  a  young 
man  of  two-and-twenty  may  surely  be  allowed  to  make  a  guess 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT.  57 

at  her  secrets,  since  she  must  then  treat  him  with  some  con- 
sideration." 

"Consideration!  So  that  is  what  you  call  it  in  these 
parts?  "  said  the  journalist  with  a  smile. 

"  I  should  suppose  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  to  have  too 
much  good  taste  to  trouble  her  head  about  that  ugly  ape," 
said  Bianchon. 

"Horace,"  said  Loustcau,  "look  here,  O  learned  inter- 
preter of  human  nature,  let  us  lay  a  trap  for  the  public  prose- 
cutor ;  we  shall  be  doing  our  friend  Gatien  a  service  and  get 
a  laugh  out  of  it.     I  do  not  love  public  prosecutors." 

"You  have  a  keen  intuition  of  destiny,"  said  Horace. 
"But  what  can  we  do?" 

"Well,  after  dinner  we  will  tell  sundry  little  anecdotes  of 
wives  caught  out  by  their  husbands,  killed,  murdered  under 
the  most  terrible  circumstances.  Then  we  shall  see  the  faces 
that  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  and  de  Clagny  will  make." 

"Not  amiss!"  said  Bianchon;  "one  or  the  other  must 
surely,  by  look  or  gesture " 

"I  know  a  newspaper  editor,"  Lousteau  went  on,  address- 
ing Gatien,  "who,  anxious  to  forefend  a  grievous  fate,  will 
take  no  stones  but  such  as  tell  the  tale  of  lovers  burned,  hewn, 
pounded,  or  cut  to  pieces;  of  wives  boiled,  fried,  or  baked  ; 
he  takes  them  to  his  wife  to  read,  hoping  that  sheer  fear  will 
keep  her  faithful — satisfied  with  that  humble  alternative,  poor 
man  !  '  You  see,  my  dear,  to  what  the  smallest  error  may 
lead  you  !  '  says  he,  epitomizing  Arnolfe's  address  to  Agnes." 

"Madame  de  La  Baudraye  is  quite  guiltless;  this  youth 
sees  double,"  said  Bianchon.  "Madame  Piedefer  seems  to 
me  far  too  pious  to  invite  her  daughter's  lover  to  the  Castle  of 
Anzy.  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  would  have  to  hoodwink 
her  mother,  her  husband,  her  maid,  and  her  mother's  maid  ; 
that  is  too  much  to  do.     I  acquit  her." 

"With  the  more  reason  because  her  husband  never  '  quits 
her,'  "  said  Gatien,  laughing  at  his  own  wit. 


58  THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT. 

"We  can  easily  remember  two  or  three  stories  that  will 
make  Dinah  quake,"  said  Lousteau.  "Young  man — and  you 
too,  Bianchon — let  me  beg  you  to  maintain  a  stern  demeanor  ; 
be  thorough  diplomatists,  an  easy  manner  without  exaggera- 
tion, and  watch  the  faces  of  the  two  criminals,  you  know, 
without  seeming  to  do  so — out  of  the  corner  of  your  eye,  or 
in  a  glass,  on  the  sly.  This  morning  we  will  hunt  the  hare, 
this  evening  we  will  harry  the  public  prosecutor." 

The  evening  began  with  a  triumph  for  Lousteau,  who  re- 
turned the  album  to  the  lady  with  this  elegy  written  in  it  : 

SPLEEN. 

You  ask  for  verse  from  me,  the  feeble  prey 
Of  this  self-seeking  world,  a  waif  and  stray 

With  none  to  whom  to  chng; 
From  me — iinliappy,  purblind,  hopeless  devil! 
Who  e'en  in  what  is  good  see  only  evil 

In  any  earthly  thing  ! 

f  his  page,  the  pastime  of  a  dame  so  fair, 

May  not  reflect  tlie  shadow  of  my  care, 
For  all  things  have  their  place. 

Of  love,  to  ladies  bright,  the  poet  sings. 

Of  joy,  and  balls,  and  dress,  and  dainty  things- 
Nay,  or  of  God  and  Grace. 

It  were  a  bitter  jest  to  bid  the  pen 

Of  one  so  worn  with  life,  so  hating  men, 

Depict  a  scene  of  joy. 
Would  you  exult  in  sight  to  one  born  blind. 
Or — cruel !  of  a  mother's  love  remind 

Some  hapless  orphan  boy  ? 

When  cold  despair  has  gripped  a  heart  still  fond, 
When  there  is  no  young  heart  that  will  respond 

To  it  in  love,  the  future  is  a  lie. 
If  there  is  none  to  weep,  when  he  is  sad, 
And  share  his  woe,  a  man  were  better  dead! — 

And  so  I  soon  must  die. 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPJ .'^T.VENT.  59 

Give  me  your  pity  !  often  I  blaspheme 

The  sacred  name  of  God.     Does  it  not  seem 

That  I  was  born  in  vain  ? 
Why  should  I  bless  Hmi  ?     Or  why  thank  Him,  since 
He  might  have  made  me  handsome,  rich,  a  prince — 

And  I  am  poor  and  plain  ? 

Etienne  Lousteau. 
September,  1836,  Chateau  d'Anzy. 

"And  you  have  written  those  verses  since  yesterday?" 
cried  Clagny  in  a  suspicions  tone. 

"  Dear  me,  yes,  as  I  was  following  the  game;  it  is  only  too 
evident?  I  would  gladly  have  done  something  better  for 
madame." 

"The  verses  are  exquisite  !  "  cried  Dinah,  casting  up  her 
eyes  to  heaven. 

"They  are,  alas  !  the  expression  of  a  too  genuine  feeling," 
replied  Lousteau,  in  a  tone  of  deep  dejection. 

The  reader  will,  of  course,  have  guessed  that  the  journalist 
had  stored  these  lines  in  his  memory  for  ten  years  at  least, 
for  he  had  written  them  at  the  time  of  the  Restoration  in  dis- 
gust at  being  unable  to  get  on.  Madame  de  la  Baudraye 
gazed  at  him  with  such  pity  as  the  woes  of  genius  inspire; 
and  Monsieur  de  Clagny,  who  caught  her  expression,  turned  in 
hatred  against  this  sham  "Jeune  Malade  "*  (young  invalid). 
He  sat  down  to  backgammon  with  the  cure  of  Sancerre.  The 
presiding  judge's  son  was  so  extremely  obliging  as  to  place  a 
lamp  near  the  two  players  in  such  a  way  as  that  the  light  fell 
full  on  Madame  de  la  Baudraye,  who  took  up  her  work;  she 
was  embroidering  in  coarse  wool  a  wicket-plait  paper-basket. 
The  three  conspirators  sat  close  at  hand. 

"For  whom  are  you  decorating  that  pretty  basket,  Mad- 
ame? "  said  Lousteau.     "  For  some  charity  lottery,  perhaps?  " 

"No,"  said  she,  "I  think  there  is  too  much  display  in 
charity  done  to  the  sound  of  a  trumpet." 

*  The  name  of  an  Elegy  written  by  Millevoye. 


CO  THE   MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT. 

"You  are  very  indiscreet,"  said  Monsieur  Gravier. 

"Can  there  be  any  indiscretion,"  said  Lousteau,  "in  in- 
quiring who  the  happy  mortal  may  be  in  whose  room  that 
basket  is  to  stand?  " 

"  There  is  no  happy  mortal  in  the  case,"  said  Dinah  ;  "  it 
is  for  Monsieur  de  La  Baudraye." 

The  public  prosecutor  looked  slily  at  Madame  de  La  Bau- 
draye and  her  work,  as  if  he  had  said  to  himself:  "  I  have  lost 
my  paper- basket !  " 

"Why,  madame,  may  we  not  think  him  happy  in  having  a 
lovely  wife,  happy  in  her  decorating  his  paper-baskets  so 
charmingly?  The  colors  are  red  and  black,  like  Robin  Good- 
fellow.  If  ever  I  marry,  I  only  hope  that,  twelve  years  after, 
my  wife's  embroidered  baskets  may  still  be  for  me." 

"  And  why  should  they  not  be  for  you  ?  "  said  the  lady,  fix- 
ing her  fine  gray  eyes,  full  of  invitation,  on  Etienne's  face. 

"Parisians  believe  in  nothing,"  said  the  lawyer  bitterly. 
"The  virtue  of  women  is  doubted  above  all  things  with  ter- 
rible insolence.  Yes,  for  some  time  past  the  books  you  have 
written,  you  Paris  authors,  your  farces,  your  dramas,  all  your 
atrocious  literature  turn  on  adultery " 

"Come,  come,  Monsieur  the  Public  Prosecutor,"  retorted 
Etienne,  laughing,  "  I  left  you  to  play  your  game  in  peace,  I 
did  not  attack  you,  and  here  you  arc  bringing  an  indictment 
against  me.  On  my  honor  as  a  journalist,  I  have  launched 
above  a  hundred  articles  against  the  writers  you  speak  of; 
but  I  confess  that  in  attacking  them  it  was  to  attempt  some- 
thing like  criticism.  Be  just ;  if  you  condemn  them,  you 
must  condemn  Homer,  whose  '  Iliad  '  turns  on  Helen  of  Troy  ; 
you  must  condemn  Milton's  'Paradise  Lost.'  Eve  and  her 
serpent  seem  to  me  a  pretty  little  case  of  symbolical  adultery ; 
you  must  suppress  the  Psalms  of  David,  inspired  by  the  highly 
adulterous  love  affairs  of  that  Louis  XIV.  of  Judah  ;  you  must 
make  a  bonfire  of  *  Mithridate,'  Me  Tartufife,'  M'EcoIe  des 
Femmes,'  'Phedre,'  '  Andromaque,'  *  le  Mariage  de  Figaro,' 


THE   MUSE    OE   THE  DEPARTMENT,  Gl 

Dante's  'Inferno,'  Petrarch's  Sonnets,  all  the  works  of  Jean- 
Jacques  Rousseau,  the  romances  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  His- 
tory of  France  and  of  Rome,  etc.,  etc.  Excepting  Bossuet's 
*  Histoire  des  Variations'  and  Pascal's  '  Provinciales,'  I  do 
not  think  there  are  many  books  left  to  read  if  you  insist  on 
eliminating  all  those  in  which  illicit  love  is  mentioned." 

"  Much  loss  that  would  be  !  "   said  Monsieur  de  Clagny. 

Etienne,  nettled  by  the  superior  air  assumed  by  Monsieur  de 
Clagny,  wanted  to  infuriate  him  by  one  of  those  cold-drawn 
jests  which  consist  in  defending  an  opinion  in  which  we  have 
no  belief,  simply  to  rouse  the  wrath  of  a  poor  man  who 
argues  in  good  faith:  a  regular  journalist's  pleasantry. 

"  If  we  take  up  the  political  attitude  into  which  you  would 
force  yourself,"  he  went  on,  without  heeding  the  lawyer's 
remark,  "and  assume  the  part  of  public  prosecutor  of  all  the 
ages — for  every  Government  has  its  public  ministry — well, 
the  Catholic  religion  is  infected  at  its  fountain-head  by  a 
startling  instance  of  illegal  union.  In  the  opinion  of  King 
Herod,  and  of  Pilate  as  representing  the  Roman  Empire, 
Joseph's  wife  figured  as  an  adulteress,  since,  by  her  own 
avowal,  Joseph  was  not  the  father  of  J.^sus.  The  heathen 
judge  could  no  more  recognize  the  immaculate  conception  than 
you  yourself  would  admit  the  possibility  of  such  a  miracle  i.f 
a  new  religion  should  nowadays  be  preached  as  based  on  a 
similar  mystery.  Do  you  suppose  that  a  judge  and  jurv  in  a 
police  court  would  give  credence  to  the  operation  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  !  And  yet  who  can  venture  to  assert  that  God  will 
never  again  redeem  mankind?  Is  it  any  better  now  than  it 
was  under  Tiberius?  " 

"Your  argument  is  blasphemy,"  said  Monsieur  de  Clagny. 

"  I  grant  it,"  said  the  journalist,  "but  not  with  malicious 
intent.  You  cannot  suppress  historical  fact.  In  my  opinion, 
Pilate,  when  he  sentenced  Jesus,  and  Anytus — who  spoke  for 
the  aristocratic  party  at  Athens — wlien  he  insisted  on  the 
death  of  Socrates,  both  represented  established  social  interests 


62  THE   MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT. 

which  held  themselves  legitimate,  invested  with  cooperative 
powers,  and  obliged  to  defend  themselves.  Pilate  and  Anytus 
in  their  time  were  not  less  logical  than  the  public  prose- 
cutors who  demanded  the  heads  of  the  sergeants  of  La  Ro- 
chelle;  who,  at  this  day,  are  guillotining  the  republicans  who 
take  up  arms  against  the  throne  as  established  by  the  revo- 
lution of  July,  and  the  innovators  who  aim  at  upsetting  society 
for  their  own  advantage  under  pretense  of  organizing  it  on  a 
better  footing.  In  the  eyes  of  the  great  families  of  Greece 
and  Rome,  Socrates  and  Jesus  were  criminals ;  to  those 
ancient  aristocracies  their  opinions  were  akin  to  those  of  the 
Mountain  ;  and  if  their  followers  had  been  victorious,  they 
would  have  produced  a  little  '  ninety-three '  in  the  Roman 
Empire  or  in  Attica." 

"To  what  are  you  trying  to  come,  monsieur?"  asked  the 
lawyer. 

"To  adultery!  For  thus,  monsieur,  a  Buddhist  as  he 
smokes  his  pipe  may  very  well  assert  that  the  Christian 
religion  is  founded  in  adultery;  as  we  believe  that  Mahomet 
is  an  impostor ;  that  his  Koran  is  an  epitome  of  the  Old 
Testament  and  the  Gospels  \  and  that  God  never  had  the 
least  intention  of  constituting  that  camel-driver  His  prophet." 

"If  there  were  many  men  like  you  in  France — and  there 
are  more  than  enough,  unfortunately — all  government  would 
be  impossible." 

"And  there  would  be  no  religion  at  all,"  said  Madame 
Piedefer,  who  had  been  making  strangely  wry  faces  all  through 
this  discussion. 

"You  are  paining  them  very  much,"  said  Bianchon  to 
Lousteau  in  an  undertone.  "Do  not  talk  of  religion;  you 
are  saying  things  that  are  enough  to  upset  them." 

"  If  I  were  a  writer  or  a  romancer,"  said  Monsieur  Gravier, 
"  I  should  take  the  side  of  the  luckless  husbands.  I,  who 
Ii.-ive  seen  many  things,  and  strange  things,  too,  know  that 
among  the  ranks  of  deceived  husbands  there  are  some  whose 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT.  63 

attitude  is  not  devoid  of  energy,  men  who,  at  a  crisis,  can  be 
very  dramatic,  to  use  one  of  your  words,  monsieur,"  he  said, 
addressing  Etienne. 

"You  are  very  right,  my  dear  Monsieur  Gravier,"  said 
Lousteau.  "  I  never  thought  that  deceived  husbands  were 
ridiculous;  on  the  contrary,  I  think  highly  of  them " 

'"Do  you  not  think  a  husband's  confidence  a  sublime 
thing?"  Said  Bianchon.  "He  believes  in  his  wife,  he  does 
not  suspect  her,  he  trusts  her  implicitly.  But  if  he  is  so  weak 
as  to  trust  her,  you  make  game  of  him ;  if  he  is  jealous  and 
suspicious,  you  hate  him ;  what,  then,  I  ask  you,  is  the  happy 
medium  for  a  man  of  spirit  ?  " 

"  If  Monsieur  de  Clagny  had  not  just  expressed  such  vehe- 
ment disapproval  of  the  immorality  of  stories  in  which  the 
matrimonial  compact  is  violated,  I  could  tell  you  of  a  hus- 
band's revenge,"  said  Lousteau. 

Monsieur  de  Clagny  threw  the  dice  with  a  convulsive  jerk, 
and  dared  not  look  up  at  the  journalist. 

"A  story,  from  you!"  cried  Madame  de  La  Baudraye. 
"I  should  hardly  have  dared  to  hope  for  such  a  treat " 

"It  is  not  my  story,  madame ;  I  am  not  clever  enough  to 
invent  such  a  tragedy.  It  was  told  me — and  how  delightfully  ! 
— by  one  of  our  greatest  writers,  the  finest  literary  musician  of 
our  day,  Charles  Nodier. " 

"  Well,  tell  it,"  said  Dinah.  "I  never  met  Monsieur  Nodier, 
so  you  have  no  comparison  to  fear." 

"  Not  long  after  the  i8th  Brumaire,"  Etienne  began,  "  there 
was,  as  you  know,  a  call  to  arms  in  Brittany  and  la  Vcnddc. 
Tiie  First  Consul,  anxious  before  all  things  for  peace  in  France, 
opened  negotiations  with  the  rebel  chiefs,  and  took  energetic 
military  measures  ;  but,  while  combiaing  his  plans  of  campaign 
with  the  insinuating  charm  of  Italian  diplomacy,  he  also  set 
the  machiavellian  springs  of  the  police  in  movement,  Fouche 
t'nen  being  at  its  head.  And  none  of  these  means  were  super- 
fluous to  stifle  the  fire  of  war  then  blazing  in  the  West. 


64  THE  MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT. 

"At  this  time  a  young  man  of  the  Maille  family  was 
dispatched  by  the  Chouans  from  Brittany  to  Saumur,  to  open 
communications  between  certain  magnates  of  that  town  and 
its  environs  and  the  leaders  of  the  Royalist  party.  The  envoy 
was,  in  fact,  arrested  on  the  very  day  he  landed — for  he 
traveled  by  boat,  disguised  as  a  master  mariner.  However, 
as  a  man  of  practical  intelligence,  he  had  calculated  all  the 
risks  of  the  undertaking ;  his  passport  and  papers  were  all  in 
order,  and  the  men  told  off  to  take  him  were  afraid  of  blun- 
dering. 

"The  Chevalier  de  Beauvoir — I  now  remember  his  name — 
had  studied  his  part  well ;  he  appealed  to  the  family  whose 
name  he  had  borrowed,  persisted  in  his  false  address,  and 
stood  his  examination  so  boldly  that  he  would  have  been  set 
at  large  but  for  the  blind  belief  that  the  spies  had  in  iheir  in- 
structions, which  were  unfortunately  only  too  minute.  In 
this  dilemma  the  authorities  were  more  ready  to  risk  an  arbi- 
trary act  than  to  let  a  man  escape  to  whose  capture  the 
Minister  attached  great  importance.  In  those  days  of  liberty 
the  agents  of  the  powers  in  authority  cared  little  enough  for 
what  we  now  regard  as  legal.  The  chevalier  was  therefore 
imprisoned  provisionally,  until  the  superior  officials  should 
come  to  some  decision  as  to  his  identity.  He  had  not  long 
to  wait  for  it ;  orders  were  given  to  guard  the  prisoner  closely 
in  spite  of  his  denials. 

"  The  Chevalier  de  Beauvoir  was  next  transferred,  in  obedi- 
ence to  further  orders,  to  the  Castle  of  I'Escarpe,  a  name  which 
sufficiently  indicates  its  situation.  This  fortress,  perched  on 
very  high  rocks,  has  precipices  for  its  trenches  ;  it  is  reached 
on  all  sides  by  steep  and  dangerous  paths  ;  and,  like  every 
ancient  castle,  its  principal  gate  has  a  drawbridge  over  a  wide 
moat.  The  commandant  of  this  prison,  delighted  to  have 
charge  of  a  man  of  family  whose  manners  were  most  agreeable, 
who  expressed  himself  well,  and  seemed  highly  educated, 
received  the  chevalier  as  a  godsend  j  he  offered  him  the  free- 


THE  MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT.  65 

dom  of  the  place  on  parole,  that  they  might  together  the 
better  defy  its  dullness.     The  prisoner  was  more  than  content. 

"  Beauvoir  was  a  loyal  gentleman,  but,  unfortunately,  he 
was  also  a  very  handsome  youth.  He  had  attractive  features, 
a  dashing  air,  a  pleasing  address,  and  extraordinary  strength. 
Well  made,  active,  full  of  enterprise,  and  loving  danger,  he 
would  have  made  an  admirable  leader  of  guerrilla,  and  was  the 
very  man  for  the  part.  The  commandant  gave  his  prisoner 
the  most  comfortable  room,  entertained  him  at  his  table,  and 
at  first  had  nothing  but  praise  for  the  Vendeen.  This  officer 
was  a  Corsican  and  married  ;  his  wife  was  pretty  and  charm- 
ing, and  he  thouglit  her,  perhaps,  not  to  be  trusted — at  any 
rate,  he  was  as  jealous  as  a  Corsican  and  a  rather  ill-looking 
soldier  may  be.  The  lady  took  a  fancy  to  Beauvoir,  and  he 
found  her  very  much  to  his  taste  ;  perhaps  they  loved  !  Love 
in  a  prison  is  quick  work.  Did  they  commit  some  impru- 
dence ?  Was  the  sentiment  they  entertained  something 
warmer  than  the  superficial  gallantry  which  is  almost  a  duty 
of  men  toward  women  ? 

"  Beauvoir  never  fully  explained  this  rather  obscure  episode 
of  the  story;  it  is  at  least  certain  that  the  commandant 
thought  himself  justified  in  treating  his  prisoner  with  excessive 
severity.  Beauvoir  was  placed  in  the  dungeon,  fed  on  black 
bread  and  cold  water,  and  fettered  in  accordance  with  the 
time-honored  traditions  of  the  treatment  lavished  on  captives. 
His  cell,  under  the  fortress-yard,  was  vaulted  with  hard  stone, 
*he  walls  were  of  desperate  thickness ;  the  tower  overlooked 
the  precipice. 

"  When  the  luckless  man  had  convinced  himself  of  the  im- 
possibility of  escape,  he  fell  into  those  day-dreams  which  are 
at  once  the  comfort  and  the  crowning  despair  of  prisoners. 
He  gave  himself  up  to  the  trifles  which  in  such  cases  seem  so 
important;  he  counted  the  hours  and  the  days;  he  studied 
the  melancholy  trade  of  being  prisoner  ;  he  became  absorbed 
in  himself,  and  learned  the  value  of  air  and  sunshine  ;  then, 
6 


66  THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT. 

at  the  end  of  a  fortnight,  he  was  attacked  by  that  terrible 
malady,  that  fever  for  liberty,  whicli  drives  prisoners  to  those 
heroic  efforts  of  which  the  prodigious  achievements  seem  to 
us  impossible,  though  true,  and  which  my  friend  the  doctor" 
(and  he  turned  to  Bianchon)  ''would  perhaps  ascribe  to  some 
unknown  forces  too  recondite  for  his  physiological  analysis  to 
detect,  some  mysteries  of  the  human  will  of  which  the  obscur- 
ity baffles  science." 

Bianchon  shook  his  head  in  negation. 

"  Beauvoir  was  eating  his  heart  out,  for  death  alone  could 
set  him  free.  One  morning  the  turnkey,  whose  duty  it  was 
to  bring  him  his  food,  instead  of  leaving  him  when  he  had 
given  him  his  meagre  pittance,  stood  with  his  arms  folded, 
looking  at  him  with  strange  meaning.  Conversation  between 
them  was  generally  brief,  and  the  warder  never  began  it. 
The  chevalier  was  therefore  greatly  surprised  when  the  man 
said  to  him :  '  Of  course,  monsieur,  you  know  your  own  busi- 
ness when  you  insist  on  being  always  called  Monsieur  Lebrun, 
or  Citizen  Lebrun.  It  is  no  concern  of  mine;  ascertaining 
your  name  is  no  part  of  my  duty.  It  is  all  the  same  to  me 
whether  you  call  yourself  Peter  or  Paul.  If  every  man  minds 
his  own  business,  the  cows  will  not  stray.  At  the  same  time, 
/  know,*  he  said,  with  a  wink,  '  that  you  are  Monsieur 
Charles-Felix-Theodore,  Chevalier  de  Beauvoir,  and  cousin  to 
Madame  la  Duchesse  de  Maille.  Heh  ? '  he  added  after  a 
short  silence,  during  which  he  looked  at  his  prisoner. 

"Beauvoir,  seeing  that  he  was  safe  under  lock  and  key,  did 
not  imagine  that  his  position  could  be  any  the  worse  if  his 
real  name  were  known. 

"  '  Well,  and  supposing  I  were  the  Chevalier  de  Beauvoir, 
what  should  I  gain  by  that  ? '  said  he. 

"  'Oh,  there  is  everything  to  be  gained  by  it,'  replied  tlie 
gaoler  in  an  undertone.  '  I  have  been  paid  to  help  you  to  get 
away;  but  wait  a  minute  !  If  I  were  suspected  in  the  smallest 
degree,  I  should  be  shot  out  of  hand.     So  I  have  said  that  I 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT.  67 

will  do  no  more  in  the  matter  than  will  just  earn  the  money. 
Look  here/  said  he,  taking  a  small  file  out  of  his  pocket,  'this 
is  your  key ;  with  this  you  can  cut  through  one  of  your  bars. 
By  the  mass,  but  it  will  not  be  an  easy  job,'  he  went  on, 
glancing  at  the  narrow  loophole  that  let  daylight  into  the 
dungeon. 

"  It  was  in  a  splayed  recess  under  the  deep  cornice  that  ran 
round  the  top  of  the  tower,  between  the  brackets  that  sup- 
ported the  embrasures. 

"'Monsieur,'  said  the  man,  'you  must  take  care  to  saw 
through  the  iron  low  enough  to  get  your  body  through.' 

"  '  I  will  get  through,  never  fear,'  said  the  prisoner. 

"'But  hish  enouarh  to  leave  a  stanchion  to  fasten  a  cord 
to,'  the  warder  went  on. 

"  '  And  where  is  the  cord  ?  '  asked  Beauvoir. 

"  '  Here,'  said  the  man,  throwing  down  a  knotted  rope. 
*It  is  made  of  raveled  linen,  that  you  may  be  supposed  to 
have  contrived  it  yourself,  and  it  is  long  enough.  When  you 
have  got  to  the  bottom  knot,  let  yourself  drop  gently,  and 
the  rest  you  must  manage  for  yourself.  You  will  probably 
find  a  carriage  somewhere  in  the  neighborhood,  and  friends 
looking  out  for  you.  But  I  know  nothing  about  that.  I 
need  not  remind  you  that  there  is  a  man-at-arms  to  the  right 
of  the  tower.  You  will  take  care,  of  course,  to  choose  a  dark 
night,  and  wait  till  the  sentinel  is  asleep.  You  must  take 
your  chance  of  being  shot ;  but ' 

"  '  All  right !  AH  right !  At  least  I  shall  not  rot  here,' 
cried  the  young  man. 

"  'Well,  that  may  happen  nevertheless,'  replied  the  gaoler, 
with  a  stupid  expression. 

"Beauvoir  thought  this  was  merely  one  of  the  aimless  re- 
marks that  such  folk  indulge  in.  The  hope  of  freedom  filled 
him  with  such  joy  that  he  could  not  be  troubled  to  consider 
the  words  of  a  man  who  was  no  more  than  a  better  sort  of 
peasant.     He  set   to  work  at  once,  and   had    filed   the  bars 


68  THE   MUSE    OF  THE   DEPARTMENT. 

through  in  the  course  of  the  day.  Fearing  a  visit  from  the 
governor,  he  stopped  up  the  breaches  with  bread-crumb  rubbed 
in  rust  to  make  it  look  like  the  iron  ;  he  hid  his  rope,  and 
waited  for  a  favorable  night  with  the  intensity  of  anticipation, 
the  deep  anguish  of  soul  that  makes  a  prisoner's  life  dramatic. 

"At  last,  one  murky  night,  an  autumn  night,  he  finished 
cutting  through  the  bars,  tied  the  cord  firmly  to  the  stump, 
and  perched  himself  on  the  sill  outside,  holding  on  by  one 
hand  to  the  piece  of  iron  remaining.  Then  he  waited  for  the 
darkest  hour  of  the  night,  when  the  sentinels  would  probably 
be  asleep ;  this  would  be  not  long  before  dawn.  He  knew 
the  hours  of  their  rounds,  the  length  of  each  watch,  every 
detail  with  which  prisoners,  almost  involuntarily,  become 
familiar.  He  waited  till  the  moment  when  one  of  the  men-at- 
arms  had  spent  two-thirds  of  his  watch  and  gone  into  his  box 
for  shelter  from  the  fog.  Then,  feeling  sure  that  the  chances 
were  at  the  best  for  his  escape,  he  let  himself  down  knot  by 
knot,  hanging  between  earth  and  sky,  and  clinging  to  his 
rope  with  the  strength  of  a  giant.  All  was  well.  At  the  last 
knot  but  one,  just  as  he  was  about  to  let  himself  drop,  a  pru- 
dent impulse  led  him  to  feel  for  the  ground  with  his  feet,  and 
he  found  no  footing.  The  predicament  was  awkward  for  a 
man  bathed  in  sweat,  tired,  and  perplexed,  and  in  a  position 
where  his  life  was  at  stake  on  even  chances.  He  was  about 
to  risk  it,  when  a  trivial  incident  stopped  him  ;  his  hat  fell  off; 
happily,  he  listened  for  the  noise  it  must  make  in  striking  the 
ground,  and  he  heard  not  a  sound. 

"The  prisoner  felt  vaguely  suspicious  as  to  this  state  of 
affairs.  He  began  to  wonder  whether  the  commandant  had 
not  laid  a  trap  for  him — but  if  so,  why  ?  Torn  by  doubts, 
he  almost  resolved  to  postpone  the  attempt  till  another  night. 
At  any  rate,  he  would  wait  for  the  first  gleam  of  day,  when  it 
would  still  not  be  impossible  to  escape.  His  great  strength 
enabled  him  to  climb  up  again  to  his  window;  still,  he  was 
almost  exhausted  by  the  time  he  gained  the   sill,  where  he 


HE  PERCEIVED THAT  THERE   WAS    A    LITTLE    INTERVAL 

OF  A  HUNDRED  FEET  BETWEEN  THE  LOWEST  KNOT 
AND  THE  POINTED  ROCKS    BELOW. 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT.  69 

crouched  on  the  lookout,  exactly  like  a  cat  on  the  parapet  of 
a  gutter.  Before  long,  by  the  pale  light  of  dawn,  he  per- 
ceived as  he  waved  the  rope  that  there  was  a  little  interval  of 
a  hundred  feet  between  the  lowest  knot  and  the  pointed  rocks 
below. 

"'Thank  you,  my  friend  the  governor!'  said  he,  with 
characteristic  coolness.  Then,  after  a  brief  meditation  on 
this  skillfully  planned  revenge,  he  thought  it  wise  to  return  to 
his  cell. 

"  He  laid  his  outer  clothes  conspicuously  on  the  bed,  left 
the  rope  outside  to  make  it  seem  that  he  had  fallen,  and  hid 
himself  behind  the  door  to  await  the  arrival  of  the  treacher- 
ous turnkey,  arming  himself  with  one  of  the  iron  bars  he  had 
filed  out.  The  gaoler,  who  returned  rather  earlier  than  usual 
to  secure  the  dead  man's  leavings,  opened  the  door,  whis- 
tling as  he  came  in ;  but  when  he  was  at  arm's  length, 
Beauvoir  hit  him  such  a  tremendous  blow  on  the  head  that 
the  wretch  fell  in  a  heap  without  a  cry ;  the  bar  had  cracked 
his  skull. 

"  The  chevalier  hastily  stripped  him  and  put  on  his  clothes, 
mimicked  his  walk,  and,  thanks  to  the  early  hour  and  the 
undoubting  confidence  of  the  warders  of  the  great  gate,  he 
walked  out  and  away." 

It  did  not  seem  to  strike  either  the  lawyer  or  Madame  de 
La  Baudraye  that  there  was  in  this  narrative  the  least  illusion 
that  should  apply  to  them.  Those  in  the  little  plot  looked  in- 
quiringly at  each  other,  evidently  surprised  at  the  perfect 
coolness  of  the  two  supposed  lovers. 

"Oh!  I  can  tell  you  a  better  story  than  that,"  said 
Bianchon. 

"  Let  us  hear,"  said  the  audience,  at  a  sign  from  Lousteau, 
conveying  that  Bianchon  had  a  reputation  as  a  story-teller. 

Amono  the  stock  of  narratives  he  had  in  store,  for  every 

o 

clever  man  has  a  fund  of  anecdotes  as  Madame  de  La  Baud- 
raye had  a  collection  of  phrases,  the  doctor  chose  that  which 


70  THE   MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT. 

is  known  as  "La  Grande  Bretgche,"*  and  is  so  famous, 
indeed,  that  it  was  put  on  the  stage  at  the  Gymnase-Dramat- 
ique  under  the  title  of  "Valentine."  So  it  is  not  necessary 
to  repeat  it  here,  though  it  was  then  new  to  the  inhabit- 
ants of  the  Castle  of  Anzy.  And  it  was  told  with  the 
same  finish  of  gesture  and  tone  which  had  won  such  praise 
for  Bianchon  when  at  Mademoiselle  des  Touches'  supper- 
party  he  had  told  it  for  the  first  time.  The  final  picture  of 
the  Spanish  grandee,  starved  to  death  where  he  stood  in  the 
cupboard  walled  up  by  Madame  de  Merret's  husband,  and 
that  husband's  last  word  as  he  replied  to  his  wife's  entreaty, 
"  You  swore  on  that  crucifix  that  there  was  no  one  in  the 
closet  !  "  produced  their  full  effect. 

There  was  a  silent  minute,  a  pause  highly  flattering  to 
Bianchon. 

"  Do  you  know,  gentlemen,"  said  Madame  de  La  Baudraye, 
**  love  must  be  a  mighty  thing  that  it  can  tempt  a  woman  to 
put  herself  in  such  a  position  ?  " 

*'  I,  who  have  certainly  seen  some  strange  things  in  the 
course  of  my  life,"  said  Gravier,  "was  cognizant  in  Spain  of 
an  adventure  of  the  same  kind." 

"You  come  forward  after  two  great  performers,"  said 
Madame  de  La  Baudraye,  with  coquettish  flattery,  as  she 
glanced  at  the  two  Parisians.      "  But  never  mind — proceed." 

"Some  little  time  after  his  entry  into  Madrid,"  said  the 
receiver-general,  "the  Grand  Duke  of  Berg  invited  the  mag- 
nates of  the  capital  to  an  entertainment  given  to  the  newly 
conquered  city  by  the  French  army.  In  spite  of  the  splendor 
of  the  affair,  the  Spaniards  were  not  very  cheerful ;  their 
ladies  hardly  danced  at  all,  and  most  of  the  company  sat 
down  to  cards.  The  gardens  of  the  duke's  palace  were  so 
brilliantly  illuminated  that  the  ladies  could  walk  about  in  as 
perfect  safety  as  in  broad  daylight.  The  fete  was  of  imperial 
magnificence.  Nothing  was  grudged  to  give  the  Spaniards  a 
-  In  volume  of  "  The  Lily  of  the  Valley," 


THE   MUSE    OF  THE   DEPARl'MENT.  71 

high  idea  of  the  Emperor,  if  they  were  to  measure  him  by  the 
standard  of  his  officers. 

"  In  an  arbor  near  the  house,  between  one  and  two  in  the 
morning,  a  party  of  French  officers  were  discussing  the  chances 
of  war,  and  the  not  too  hopeful  outlook  prognosticated  by  the 
conduct  of  the  Spaniards  present  at  that  grand  ball. 

"  '  I  can  only  tell  you,'  said  the  surgeon-major  of  the  com- 
pany of  which  I  was  paymaster,  '  I  applied  formally  to  Prince 
Murat  only  yesterday  to  be  recalled.  Without  being  afraid 
exactly  of  leaving  my  bones  in  the  Peninsula,  I  would  ratlier 
dress  the  wounds  made  by  our  worthy  neighbors  the  Germans. 
Their  weapons  do  not  run  quite  so  deep  into  the  body  as  these 
Castilian  daggers.  Beside,  a  certain  dread  of  Spain  is,  with 
me,  a  sort  of  superstition.  From  my  earliest  youth  I  have 
read  Spanish  books,  and  a  heap  of  gloomy  romances  and  tales 
of  adventure  in  this  country  have  given  me  a  serious  prejudice 
against  its  manners  and  customs. 

ti  (  y/qW^  now,  since  my  arrival  in  Madrid,  I  have  already 
been,  not  indeed  the  hero,  but  the  accomplice  of  a  dangerous 
intrigue,  as  dark  and  mysterious  as  any  romance  by  Lady 
[Mrs.]  Radcliffe.  I  am  apt  to  attend  to  my  presentiments, 
and  I  am  off  to-morrow.  Murat  will  not  refuse  me  leave, 
for,  thanks  to  our  varied  services,  we  always  have  influential 
friends.' 

"'Since  you  mean  to  cut  your  stick,  tell  us  what's  up,' 
said  an  old  Republican  colonel,  who  cared  not  a  rap  for  Im- 
perial gentility  and  choice  language. 

"The  surgeon-major  looked  about  him  cautiously,  as  if  to 
make  sure  who  were  his  audience,  and,  being  satisfied  that  no 
Spaniard  was  within  hearing,  he  said  : 

"'We  are  none  but  Frenchmen — then,  with  pleasure, 
Colonel  Hulot.  About  six  days  since,  I  was  quietly  going 
home,  at  about  eleven  at  night,  after  leaving  General  Mont- 
cornet,  whose  hotel  is  but  a  few  yards  from  mine.  Wc  had 
come  away  together  from  the  quartermaster-general's,  where 


72  THE   MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT. 

we  had  played  rather  high  at  bouillotte.  Suddenly,  at  the 
corner  of  a  narrow  side-street,  two  strangers,  or  rather,  two 
demons,  rushed  upon  me  and  flung  a  large  cloak  round  my 
head  and  arms.  I  yelled  out,  as  you  may  suppose,  like  a  dog 
that  is  thrashed,  but  the  cloth  smothered  my  voice,  and  I  was 
lifted  into  a  chaise  with  dexterous  rapidity.  When  my  two 
companions  released  me  from  the  cloak,  I  heard  these  dread- 
ful words  spoken  by  a  woman,  in  bad  French : 

"  '  "  If  you  cry  out  or  if  you  attempt  to  escape,  if  you  make 
the  very  least  suspicious  demonstration,  the  gentleman  oppo- 
site to  you  will  stab  you  without  hesitation.  So  you  had  better 
keep  quiet.  Now,  I  will  tell  you  why  you  have  been  carried 
off.  If  you  will  take  the  trouble  to  put  your  hand  out  in  this 
direction,  you  will  find  your  case  of  instruments  lying  between 
us  ;  we  sent  a  messenger  for  them  to  your  rooms,  in  your 
name.  You  will  need  them.  We  are  taking  you  to  a  house 
that  you  may  save  the  honor  of  a  lady  who  is  about  to  give 
birth  to  a  child  that  she  wishes  to  place  in  this  gentleman's 
keeping  without  her  husband's  knowledge.  Though  monsieur 
rarely  leaves  his  wife,  with  whom  he  is  still  passionately  in 
love,  watching  over  her  with  all  the  vigilance  of  Spanish 
jealousy,  she  has  succeeded  in  concealing  her  condition  ;  he 
believes  her  to  be  ill.  You  must  bring  the  child  into  the 
world.  The  dangers  of  this  enterprise  do  not  concern  us: 
only,  you  must  obey  us,  otherwise  the  lover,  who  is  sitting 
opposite  to  you  in  this  carriage,  and  who  does  not  understand 
a  word  of  Frencli,  will  kill  you  on  the  least  rash  movement." 

"  '  "And  who  are  you?  "  I  asked,  feeling  for  the  speaker's 
hand,  for  her  arm  was  inside  the  sleeve  of  a  soldier's  uniform. 

"  '  "  I  am  my  lady's  waiting-woman,"  said  she,  "  and  ready 
to  reward  you  with  my  own  person  if  you  show  yourself  gal- 
lant and  helpful  in  our  necessities." 

"  '  "  Gladly,"  said  I,  seeing  that  I  was  inevitably  started  on 
a  perilous  adventure. 

"  '  Under  favor  of  the  darkness,  I  felt  whether  the  person 


THE  MUSE    OF  THE  DEPARTMENT.  73 

and  figure  of  the  girl  were  in  keeping  with  the  idea  I  had 
formed  of  her  from  her  tone  of  voice.  The  good  soul  had,  no 
doubt,  made  up  her  mind  from  the  first  to  accept  all  the 
chances  of  this  strange  act  of  kidnapping,  for  she  kept  silence 
very  obligingly,  and  the  coach  had  not  been  more  than  ten 
minutes  on  the  way  when  she  accepted  and  returned  a  very 
satisfactory  kiss.  The  lover,  who  sat  opposite  to  me,  took  no 
offense  at  an  occasional  quite  involuntary  kick  ;  as  he  did  not 
understand  French,  I  conclude  he  paid  no  heed  to  them. 

"  '  "  I  can  be  your  mistress  on  one  condition  only,"  said  the 
woman,  in  reply  to  the  nonsense  I  poured  into  her  ear,  carried 
away  by  the  fervor  of  an  improvised  passion,  to  which  every- 
thing was  unpropitious. 

"'"And  what  is  it?" 

"  '  "  That  you  will  never  attempt  to  find  out  whose  servant 
I  am.  If  I  am  to  go  to  you,  it  must  be  at  night,  and  you 
must  receive  me  in  the  dark." 

'"  "Very  good,"  said  I. 

"  '  We  had  got  as  far  as  this,  when  the  carriage  drew  up 
under  a  garden  wall. 

"  '  "You  must  allow  me  to  bandage  your  eyes,"  said  the 
coquettish  maid.  "  You  can  lean  on  my  arm,  and  I  will  lead 
you." 

"  'She  tied  a  handkerchief  over  my  eyes,  fastening  it  in  a 
tight  knot  at  the  back  of  my  head.  I  heard  the  sound  of  a 
key  being  cautiously  fitted  to  the  lock  of  a  little  side-door  by 
the  speechless  lover  who  had  sat  opposite  to  me.  In  a  mo- 
ment the  waiting-woman,  whose  shape  was  slender,  and  who 
walked  with  an  elegant  jauntiness ' — meneho,  as  they  call  it," 
Monsieur  Gravier  explained  in  a  superior  tone,  "  a  word  which 
describes  the  swing  which  women  contrive  to  give  a  certain 
part  of  their  dress  that  shall  be  nameless.  '  The  waiting- 
woman  ' — it  is  the  surgeon-major  who  is  speaking,"  the  nar- 
rator went  on — "  '  led  me  along  the  gravel-walks  of  a  large 
garden,  till  at  a  certain  spot  she  stopped.     From  the  louder 


74  THE   MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT. 

sound  of  our  footsteps,  I  concluded  that  we  were  close  to  the 
house.  "  Now  silence  !  "  said  she  in  a  whisper,  "and  mind 
what  you  are  about.  Do  not  overlook  one  of  my  signals  ;  I 
cannot  speak  without  terrible  danger  for  both  of  us,  and  at 
this  moment  your  life  is  of  the  first  importance."  Then  she 
added :  "  My  mistress  is  in  a  room  on  the  first  floor.  To  get 
into  it  we  must  pass  through  her  husband's  room  and  close  to 
his  bed.  Do  not  cough,  walk  softly,  and  follow  me  closely, 
so  as  not  to  knock  against  the  furniture  or  tread  anywhere  but 
on  the  carpets  I  laid  down," 

"  *  Here  the  lover  gave  an  impatient  growl,  as  a  man  an- 
noyed by  so  much  delay. 

"  '  The  woman  said  no  more,  I  heard  a  door  open,  I  felt 
the  warm  air  of  the  house,  and  we  stole  in  like  thieves. 
Presently  the  girl's  light  hand  removed  the  bandage.  I  found 
myself  in  a  lofty  and  spacious  room,  badly  lighted  by  a  smoky 
lamp.  The  window  was  open,  but  the  jealous  husband  had 
fitted  it  with  iron  bars,  I  was  in  the  bottom  of  a  sack,  as  it 
were, 

"  'On  the  ground  a  woman  was  lying  on  a  mat ;  her  head 
was  covered  with  a  muslin  veil,  but  I  could  see  her  eyes 
through  it  full  of  tears  and  flashing  with  the  brightness  of 
stars;  she  held  a  handkerchief  in  her  mouth,  biting  it  so  hard 
that  her  teeth  were  set  in  it:  I  never  saw  finer  limbs,  but  her 
body  was  writhing  with  pain  like  a  harp-string  thrown  on  the 
fire.  The  poor  creature  had  made  a  sort  of  struts  of  her  legs 
by  setting  her  feet  against  a  chest  of  drawers,  and  with  both 
hands  she  held  on  to  the  bar  of  a  chair,  her  arms  outstretched, 
with  every  vein  painfully  swelled.  She  might  have  been  a 
criminal  undergoing  torture.  But  she  did  not  utter  aery; 
there  was  not  a  sound  but  the  dull  cracking  of  her  joints. 
There  we  stood,  all  three  speechless  and  motionless.  The 
husband  snored  with  reassuring  regularity.  I  wanted  to  study 
the  waiting-woman's  face,  but  she  had  put  on  a  mask,  which 
she  had  removed,  no  doubt,  during  our  drive,  and  I  could  see 


THE  MUSE    OF  THE   DEPARTMENT.  75 

nothing  but  a  pair  of  black  eyes  and  a  pleasingly  rounded 
figure. 

"  '  The  lover  threw  some  towels  over  his  mistress'  legs  and 
folded  the  muslin  veil  double  over  her  face.  As  soon  as  I  had 
examined  the  lady  with  care,  I  perceived  from  certain  symi> 
toms  which  I  had  noted  once  before  on  a  very  sad  occasion 
in  my  life,  that  the  infant  was  dead.  I  turned  to  the  maid  in 
order  to  tell  her  this.  Instantly  the  suspicious  stranger  drew 
his  dagger;  but  I  had  time  to  explain  the  matter  to  the 
woman,  who  explained  in  a  word  or  two  to  him  in  a  low 
voice.  On  hearing  my  opinion,  a  quick,  slight  shudder  ran 
through  him  from  head  to  foot  like  a  lightning  flash  ;  I  fancied 
I  could  see  him  turn  pale  under  his  black  velvet  mask. 

"  'The  waiting-woman  took  advantage  of  a  moment  when 
he  was  bending  in  despair  over  the  dying  woman,  who  had 
turned  blue,  to  point  to  some  glasses  of  lemonade  standing 
on  a  table,  at  the  same  time  shaking  her  head  negatively.  I 
understood  that  I  was  not  to  drink  anything  in  spite  of  the 
dreadful  thirst  that  parched  my  throat.  The  lover  was  thirsty 
too  ;  he  took  an  empty  glass,  poured  out  some  fresh  lemonade 
and  drank  it  off. 

"  'At  this  moment  the  lady  had  a  violent  attack  of  pain, 
which  showed  me  that  now  was  the  time  to  operate.  I  sum- 
moned all  my  courage,  and  in  about  an  hour  had  succeeded 
in  delivering  her  of  the  child,  cutting  it  up  to  extract  it. 
The  Spaniard  no  longer  thought  of  poisoning  me,  understand- 
ing that  I  had  saved  the  mother's  life.  Large  tears  fell  on 
his  cloak.  The  woman  uttered  no  sound,  but  she  trembled 
like  a  hunted  animal,  and  was  bathed  in  sweat. 

"  'At  one  horribly  critical  moment  she  pointed  in  the  direc- 
tion of  her  husband's  room  ;  he  had  turned  in  his  sleep,  and 
she  alone  had  heard  the  rustle  of  the  sheets,  the  creaking  of 
the  bed  or  of  the  curtain.  Wc  all  paused,  and  the  lover  and 
the  waiting-woman,  through  the  eyeholes  of  their  masks,  gave 
each  other  a  look  that  said,  "  If  he  wakes,  shall  we  kill  him  ?  " 


76  THE  MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT. 

*'  *  At  that  instant  I  put  out  my  hand  to  take  the  glass  of 
lemonade  the  Spaniard  had  drunk  part  of.  He,  thinking  that 
I  was  about  to  take  one  of  the  full  glasses,  sprang  forward  like 
a  cat,  and  laid  his  long  dagger  over  the  two  poisoned  goblets, 
leaving  me  his  own,  and  signing  to  me  to  drink  what  was 
left.  So  much  was  conveyed  by  this  quick  action,  and  it  was 
so  full  of  good  feeling,  that  I  forgave  him  his  atrocious 
schemes  for  killing  me,  and  thus  burying  every  trace  of  this 

event. 

"  'After  two  hours  of  care  and  alarms,  the  maid  and  I  put 
her  mistress  to  bed.  The  lover,  forced  into  so  perilous  an 
adventure,  had,  to  provide  means  in  case  of  having  to  fly,  a 
packet  of  diamonds  stuck  to  paper;  these  he  put  into  my 
pocket  without  my  knowing  it ;  and  I  may  add,  parenthetically, 
that  as  I  was  ignorant  of  the  Spaniard's  magnificent  gift,  my 
servant  stole  the  jewels  the  day  after,  and  went  off  with  a 
perfect  fortune. 

"  '  I  whispered  my  instructions  to  the  waiting-woman  as  to 
the  further  care  of  her  patient,  and  wanted  to  be  gone.  The 
maid  remained  with  her  mistress,  which  was  not  very  reassur- 
ing, but  I  was  on  my  guard.  The  lover  made  a  bundle  of  the 
dead  infant  and  the  blood-stained  cloths,  tying  it  up  tightly, 
and  hiding  it  under  his  cloak ;  he  passed  his  hand  over  my 
eyes  as  if  to  bid  me  to  see  nothing,  and  signed  to  me  to  take 
hold  of  the  skirt  of  his  coat.  He  went  first  out  of  the  room, 
and  I  followed,  not  without  a  parting  glance  at  my  lady  of  an 
hour.  She,  seeing  the  Spaniard  had  gone  out,  snatched  off 
her  mask  and  showed  me  an  exquisite  face. 

"  '  When  I  found  myself  in  the  garden,  in  the  open  air,  I 
confess  that  I  breathed  as  if  a  heavy  load  had  been  lifted  from 
my  breast.  I  followed  my  guide  at  a  respectful  distance, 
watching  his  least  movement  with  keen  attention.  Having 
reached  the  little  door,  he  took  my  hand  and  pressed  a  seal  to 
my  lips,  set  in  a  ring  which  I  had  seen  him  wearing  on  a  finger 
of  his  left  hand,  and  I  gave  him  to  understand  that  this  sig- 


THE  MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT.  77 

nificant  sign  would  be  obeyed.  In  the  street  two  horses  were 
waiting;  we  each  mounted  one.  My  Spaniard  took  my  bridle, 
held  his  own  between  his  teeth,  for  his  right  hand  held  the 
blood-stained  bundle,  and  we  went  off  at  lightning  speed. 

"  *I  could  not  see  the  smallest  object  by  which  to  retrace 
the  road  we  came.  At  dawn  I  found  myself  close  by  my 
own  door,  and  the  Spaniard  fled  toward  the  Atocha  gate.' 

"  'And  you  saw  nothing  which  could  lead  you  to  suspect 
who  the  woman  was  whom  you  had  attended  ? '  the  colonel 
asked  of  the  surgeon. 

"  '  One  thing  only,'  he  replied.  'When  I  turned  the  un- 
known lady  over,  I  happened  to  remark  a  mole  on  her  arm, 
about  half-way  down,  as  big  as  a  lentil,  and  surrounded  with 
brown  hairs.'  At  this  instant  the  rash  speaker  turned  pale. 
All  our  eyes,  that  had  been  fixed  on  his,  followed  his  glance, 
and  we  saw  a  Spaniard,  whose  glittering  eyes  shone  through  a 
clump  of  orange-trees.  On  finding  himself  the  object  of  our 
attention,  the  man  vanished  with  the  swiftness  of  a  sylph.  A 
young  captain  rushed  in  pursuit. 

"  '  By  heaven  !  '  cried  the  surgeon,  '  that  basilisk  stare  has 
chille4  me  through,  my  friends.  I  can  hear  bells  ringing  in 
my  ears  !     I  may  take  leave  of  you  ;  you  will  bury  me  here  ! ' 

"  '  What  a  fool  you  are!  '  exclaimed  Colonel  Hulot.  '  Fal- 
con is  on  the  track  of  the  Spaniard  who  was  listening,  and  he 
will  call  him  to  account.' 

"  'Well,'  cried  one  and  another,  seeing  the  captain  return 
quite  out  of  breath. 

"  'The  devil's  in  it,'  said  Falcon  ;  'the  man  went  through 
a  wall,  I  believe  !  As  I  do  not  suppose  that  he  is  a  wizard,  I 
fancy  he  must  belong  to  the  house  !  He  knows  every  corner 
and  turning,  and  easily  escaped.' 

"  '  I  am  done  for,'  said  tlie  surgeon,  in  a  gloomy  voice. 
"'Come,  come,  keep  calm,   Bega,'   said   I  This  name  was 
Bega),   '  we  will  sit  on  watch  with  you  till  you  leave.     We 
vill  not  leave  you  this  evening.' 


78  THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT. 

**  In  point  of  fact,  three  young  officers  who  had  been  losing 
at  play  went  home  with  the  surgeon  to  his  lodgings,  and  one 
of  us  offered  to  stay  with  him. 

"Within  two  days  Bega  had  obtained  his  recall  to  France; 
he  made  arrangements  to  travel  with  a  lady  to  whom  Murat 
had  given  a  strong  escort,  and  had  just  finished  dinner  with  a 
party  of  friends,  when  his  servant  came  to  say  that  a  young 
lady  wished  to  speak  to  him.  The  surgeon  and  the  three 
officers  went  down  suspecting  mischief.     The  stranger  could 

only  say :  '  Be  on  your  guard '  when  she  dropped  down 

dead.     It  was  the  waiting-woman,  who,  finding  she  had  been 
poisoned,  had  hoped  to  arrive  in  time  to  warn  her  lover. 

"  '  Devil  take  it ! '  cried  Captain  Falcon,  '  that  is  what  I 
call  love  !  No  woman  on  earth  but  a  Spaniard  can  run  about 
with  a  dose  of  poison  in  her  inside  !  ' 

*'  Bega  remained  strangely  pensive.  To  drown  the  dark 
presentiments  that  haunted  him,  he  sat  down  to  table  again, 
and  with  his  companions  drank  immoderately.  The  whole 
party  went  early  to  bed,  half-drunk. 

"  In  the  middle  of  the  night  the  hapless  Bega  was  aroused  by 
the  sharp  rattle  of  the  curtain  rings  pulled  violently  along  the 
rods.  He  sat  up  in  bed,  in  the  mechanical  trepidation  which 
we  all  feel  on  waking  with  such  a  start.  He  saw  standing 
before  him  a  Spaniard  wrapped  in  a  cloak,  who  fixed  on  him 
the  same  burning  gaze  that  he  had  seen  through  the  bushes. 

"  Bega  shouted  out:  'Help,  help,  come  at  once,  friends!' 
But  the  Spaniard  answered  his  cry  of  distress  with  a  bitter 
laugh.      '  Opium  grows  for  all  ?  '  said  he. 

"  Having  thus  pronounced  sentence  as  it  v/ere,  the  stranger 
pointed  to  the  three  other  men  sleeping  soundly,  took  from 
under  his  cloak  the  arm  of  a  woman,  freshly  amputated,  and 
held  it  out  to  Bega,  pointing  to  a  mole  like  that  he  had  so 
rashly  described.  *  Is  it  the  same?'  he  asked.  By  the  light 
of  the  lantern  the  man  had  set  on  the  bed,  Bega  recognized 
the  arm,  and  his  speechless  amazement  was  answer  enough. 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT.  79 

"Without  waiting  for  further  information,  the  lady's  hus- 
band stabbed  him  to  the  heart." 

"  You  must  tell  that  to  the  marines  !  "  said  Lousteau.  *'  It 
needs  their  robust  faith  to  swallow  it !  Can  you  tell  me  which 
told  the  tale,  the  dead  man  or  the  Spaniard?" 

"Monsieur,"  replied  the  receiver-general,  "  I  nursed  poor 
Bega,  who  died  five  days  after  in  dreadful  suffering.  That  is 
not  the  end. 

"At  the  time  of  the  expedition  sent  out  to  restore  Fer- 
dinand VII.  I  was  appointed  to  a  place  in  Spain  ;  but  happily 
for  me,  I  had  got  no  farther  than  Tours  when  I  was  promised 
the  post  of  receiver  here  at  Sancerre.  On  the  eve  of  setting 
out  I  was  at  a  ball  at  Madame  de  Listomere's,  where  we  were 
to  meet  several  Spaniards  of  high  rank.  On  rising  from  the 
card-table,  I  saw  a  Spanish  grandee,  an  afrancesado  in  exile, 
who  had  been  about  a  fortnight  in  Touraine.  He  had  arrived 
very  late  at  this  ball — his  first  appearance  in  society — accom- 
panied by  his  wife,  whose  right  arm  was  perfectly  motionless. 
Everybody  made  way  in  silence  for  this  couple,  whom  we  all 
watched  with  some  excitement.  Imagine  a  picture  by  Murillo 
come  to  life.  Under  black  and  hollow  brows  the  man's  eyes 
were  like  a  fixed  blaze ;  his  face  looked  dried  up,  his  bald 
skull  was  red,  and  his  frame  was  a  terror  to  behold,  he  was  so 
emaciated.  His  wife — no,  you  cannot  imagine  her.  Her 
figure  had  the  supple  swing  for  which  the  Spaniards  created 
the  word  mfngho ;  though  pale,  she  was  still  beautiful;  her 
complexion  was  dazzlingly  fair — a  rare  thing  in  a  Spaniard  ; 
and  her  gaze,  full  of  the  Spanish  sun,  fell  on  you  like  a  stream 
of  molten  lead. 

"  '  Madame,'  said  I  to  her,  toward  the  end  of  the  evening, 
'  what  occurrence  led  to  the  loss  of  your  arm?  ' 

"  *  I  lost  it  in  the  war  of  indepedence,'  said  she." 

"  Spain  is  a  strange  country,"  said  Madame  de  la  Baudraye. 
"It  still  shows  traces  of  Arab  manners." 

"Oh!"    said   the  journalist,    laughing     "the   mania   for 


80  THE  MUSE   OF  THE   DEPARTMENT. 

cutting  off  arms  is  an  old  one  there.  It  turns  up  again  every 
now  tlien  like  some  of  our  newspaper  hoaxes,  for  the  subject 
has  given  plots  for  plays  on  the  Spanish  stage  so  early  as 
the  year  1570 " 

"  Then  do  you  think  me  capable  of  inventing  such  a  story?" 
said  Monsieur  Gravier,  nettled  by  Lousteau's  impertinent  tone. 

"Quite  incapable  of  such  a  thing,"  said  the  journalist  with 
grave  irony, 

"Pooh!"  said  Bianchon,  "the  inventions  of  romances 
and  play-writers  are  quite  as  often  transferred  from  their  books 
and  pieces  into  real  life,  as  the  events  of  real  life  are  made  use 
of  on  the  stage  or  adapted  to  a  tale.  I  have  seen  the  comedy 
of  '  Tartuffe  '  played  out — with  the  exception  of  the  close ; 
Orgon's  eyes  could  not  be  opened  to  the  truth." 

"And  the  tragi-comedy  of  'Adolphe'  by  Benjamin  Con- 
stant is  constantly  enacted,"  cried  Lousteau. 

"And  do  you  suppose,"  asked  Madame  de  La  Baudraye, 
"  that  such  adventures  as  Monsieur  Gravier  has  related  could 
ever  occur  now,  and  in  France?  " 

"  Dear  me  !  "  cried  Clagny,  "  of  the  ten  or  twelve  startling 
crimes  that  are  annually  com.mitted  in  France,  quite  half  are 
mixed  up  with  circumstances  at  least  as  extraordinary  as  these, 
and  often  outdoing  them  in  romantic  details.  Indeed,  is  not 
this  proved  by  the  reports  in  the  '  Gazette  des  Tribunaux ' — 
the  Police  News — in  my  opinion,  one  of  the  worst  abuses  of 
the  press?  This  newspaper,  which  was  started  only  in  1826 
or  1827,  was  not  in  existence  when  I  began  my  professional 
career,  and  the  facts  of  the  crime  I  am  about  to  speak  of  were 
not  known  beyond  the  limits  of  the  department  where  it  was 
committed. 

"  In  the  quarter  of  Saint-Pierre-des-Corps  at  Tours,  a  woman 
whose  husband  had  disappeared  at  the  time  when  the  army  of 
the  Loire  was  disbanded,  and  who  had  mourned  him  deeply, 
was  conspicuous  for  her  excess  of  devotion.  When  the  mission 
priests  went  through  all  the  provinces  to  restore  the  crosses 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT.  81 

that  had  been  destroyed  and  to  efface  the  traces  of  revolu- 
tionarv  inipiety,  this  widow  was  one  of  their  most  zealous 
proselytes,  she  carried  a  cross  and  nailed  to  it  a  silver  heart 
pierced  by  an  arrow;  and,  for  a  long  time  after,  she  went 
every  evening  to  pray  at  the  foot  of  the  cross  which  was  erected 
behind  the  cathedral  apse. 

"At  last,  overwhelmed  by  remorse,  she  confessed  to  a  hor- 
rible crime.  She  had  killed  her  husband,  as  Fualdes  was 
murdered,  by  bleeding  him ;  she  had  salted  the  body  and 
packed  it  in  pieces  into  old  casks,  exactly  as  if  it  had  been 
pork  ;  and  for  a  long  time  she  had  taken  a  piece  every  morn- 
ins:  and  thrown  it  into  the  Loire.  Her  confessor  consulted 
his  superiors,  and  told  her  that  it  would  be  his  duty  to  inform 
the  public  prosecutor.  The  woman  awaited  the  action  of  the 
law.  The  public  prosecutor  and  the  examining  judge,  on  ex- 
amining the  cellar,  found  the  husband's  head  still  in  pickle  in 
one  of  the  casks.  'Wretched  woman,'  said  the  judge  to  the 
accused,  *  since  you  were  so  barbarous  as  to  throw  your  hus- 
band's body  piecemeal  into  the  river,  why  did  you  not  get  rid 
of  the  head?     Then  there  would  have  been  no  proof.' 

"'I  often  tried,  monsieur,'  said  she,  'but  it  was  too 
heavy.'  " 

"  Well,  and  what  became  of  the  woman?"  asked  the  two 
Parisians. 

"She  was  sentenced  and  executed  at  Tours,"  replied  the 
lawyer  ;  "  but  her  repentance  and  piety  had  attracted  interest 
in  spite  of  her  monstrous  crime." 

"And  do  you  suppose,"  said  Bianchon,  "  that  we  know  all 
the  tragedies  that  are  played  out  behind  the  curtain  of  private 
life  that  the  public  never  lifts?  It  seems  to  me  that  human 
justice  is  ill  adapted  to  judge  of  crimes  as  between  husband 
and  wife.  It  has  every  right  to  intervene  as  the  police  ;  but 
in  equity  it  knows  nothing  of  the  heart  of  the  matter." 

"The  victim  has  in  many  cases  been  for  so  long  the  tor- 
mentor," said  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  guilelessly,  "  that  the 
6 


82  THE   MLSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT 

crime  would  sometimes  seem  almost  excusable  if  the  accused 
could  tell  all." 

This  reply,  led  up  to  by  Bianchon  and  by  the  story  which 
Clagny  had  told,  left  the  two  Parisians  excessively  puzzled  as 
to  Dinah's  position. 

At  bedtime  council  was  held,  one  of  those  discussions 
which  take  place  in  the  passages  of  old  country-houses  where 
the  bachelors  linger,  candle  in  hand,  for  mysterious  conversa- 
tions. 

Monsieur  Gravier  was  now  informed  of  the  object  in  view 
during  this  entertaining  evening  which  had  brought  Madame 
de  La  Baudraye's  innocence  to  light. 

"But,  after  all,"  said  Lousteau,  "our  hostess*  serenity  may 
indicate  deep  depravity  instead  of  the  most  childlike  inno- 
cence. The  public  prosecutor  looks  to  me  quite  capable  of 
suggesting  that  little  La  Baudraye  should  be  put  in  pickle 
and " 

"  He  is  not  to  return  till  to-morrow;  who  knows  what  may 
happen  in  the  course  of  the  night?"  said  Gatien. 

"We  will  know!  "  cried  Monsieur  Gravier. 

In  the  life  of  a  country  house  a  number  of  practical  jokes 
are  considered  admissible,  some  of  them  odiously  treacherous. 
Monsieur  Gravier,  who  had  seen  so  much  of  the  world,  pro- 
posed setting  seals  on  the  doors  of  Madame  de  La  Baudraye 
and  of  the  public  prosecutor.  The  ducks  that  denounced  the 
poet  Ibycus  are  as  nothing  in  comparison  with  the  single  hair 
that  these  country  spies  fasten  across  the  opening  of  a  door  by 
means  of  two  little  flattened  pills  of  wax,  fixed  so  high  up,  or 
so  low  down,  that  the  trick  is  never  suspected.  If  the  gallant 
comes  out  of  his  own  door  and  opens  the  other,  the  broken 
hair  tells  the  tale. 

When  everybody  was  supposed  to  be  asleep,  the  doctor,  the 
journalist,  the  receiver  of  taxes,  and  Gatien  came  barefoot, 
like  robbers,  and  silently  fastened  up  the  two  doors,  agreeing 
to  come  again  at  five  in  the  morning  to  examine  the  state  of 


THE   MUSE    OF   ThE   DEPARTMENT.  83 

the  fastenings.  Imagine  their  astonishment  and  Gatien's  de- 
light when  all  four,  candle  in  hand,  and  with  hardly  any 
clothes  on,  came  to  look  at  the  hairs,  and  found  them  in 
perfect  preservation  on  both  doors. 

"Is  it  the  same  wax?  "   asked  Monsieur  Gravier. 

"Are  they  the  same  hairs  ?  "  asked  Lousteau. 

"Yes,"  replied  Gatien. 

"This  quite  alters  the  matter!"  cried  Lousteau.  "You 
have  been  beating  the  bush  for  a  will-o'-the-wisp." 

Monsieur  Gravier  and  Gatien  exchanged  questioning  glances 
which  were  meant  to  convey :  '•'  Is  there  not  something  offen- 
sive to  us  in  that  speech  ?  Ought  we  to  laugh  or  to  be 
angrv  ? 

"If  Dinah  is  virtuous,"  said  the  journalist  in  a  whisper  to 
Bianchon,  "she  is  worth  an  effort  on  my  part  to  pluck  the 
fruit  of  her  first  love." 

The  idea  of  carrying  by  storm  a  fortress  that  had  for  nine 
years  stood  out  against  the  besiegers  of  Sancerre  smiled  on 
Lousteau. 

With  this  notion  in  his  head,  he  was  the  first  to  go  down 
and  into  the  garden,  hoping  to  meet  his  hostess.  And  this 
chance  fell  out  all  the  more  easily  because  Madame  de  La 
Baudraye  on  her  part  wished  to  converse  with  her  critic. 
Half  such  chances  are  planned. 

"You  were  out  shooting  yesterday,  monsieur,"  said  Ma- 
dame de  La  Baudraye,  "This  morning  I  am  rather  puzzled 
as  to  how  to  find  you  any  new  amusement  ;  unless  you  would 
like  to  come  to  La  Baudraye,  where  you  may  study  more  of 
our  provincial  life  than  you  can  see  here,  for  you  have  made 
but  one  mouthful  of  my  absurdities.  However,  the  saying 
about  the  handsomest  girl  in  the  world  is  not  less  true  of  the 
poor  provincial  woman  !  " 

"  Tiiat  little  simpleton  Gatien  has,  I  suppose,  repeated  to 
you  a  speech  I  made  simply  to  make  him  confess  that  he 
adored  you,"  said  Etienne.      "Your  silence,  during  dinner 


84  THE   MUSE    OF  THE  DEPARTMENT. 

the  day  before  yesterday  and  throughout  the  evening,  was 
enough  to  betray  one  of  those  indiscretions  which  we  never 
commit  in  Paris.  What  can  I  say  ?  I  do  not  flatter  myself 
that  you  will  understand  me.  In  fact,  I  laid  a  plot  for  the 
telling  of  all  those  stories  yesterday  solely  to  see  whether  I 
could  rouse  you  and  Monsieur  de  Clagny  to  a  pang  of  remorse. 
Oh  !  be  quite  easy ;  your  innocence  is  fully  proved. 

"  If  you  had  the  slightest  fancy  for  that  estimable  magis- 
trate, you  would  have  lost  all  your  value  in  my  eyes.  I  love 
perfection. 

"You  do  not,  you  cannot  love  that  cold,  dried-up,  taciturn 
little  usurer  on  wine-casks  and  land,  who  would  leave  any  man 
in  the  lurch  for  twenty-five  centimes  on  a  renewal.  Oh,  I 
have  fully  recognized  Monsieur  de  La  Baudraye's  similarity 
to  a  Parisian  bill-discounter;  their  nature  is  identical.  At 
eight-and-twenty,  handsome,  well  conducted,  and  childless — I 
assure  you,  madame,  I  never  saw  the  problem  of  virtue  more 
.'admirably  expressed.  The  author  of  '  Paquita  la  Sevillane ' 
must  have  dreamed  many  dreams  ! 

"  I  can  speak  of  such  things  without  the  hypocritical  gloss 
lent  them  by  young  men,  for  I  am  old  before  my  time.  I 
have  no  illusions  left.  Can  a  man  have  any  illusions  in  the 
trade  I  follow?" 

By  opening  the  game  in  this  tone,  Lousteau  cut  out  all  ex- 
cursions in  the  Pays  de  Tendre  (country  of  sentiment),  where 
genuine  passion  beats  the  bush  so  long ;  he  went  straight  to 
the  point  and  placed  himself  in  a  position  to  force  the  offer 
of  what  women  often  make  a  man  pray  for,  for  years ;  witness 
the  hapless  public  prosecutor,  to  whom  the  greatest  favor  had 
consisted  in  clasping  Dinah's  hand  to  his  heart  more  tenderly 
than  usual  as  they  walked,  happy  man  ! 

And  Madame  de  La  Baudraye,  to  be  true  to  her  reputation 
as  a  Superior  Woman,  tried  to  console  the  Manfred  of  the 
press  by  prophesying  such  a  future  of  love  as  he  had  not  had 
in  his  mind. 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT.  85 

"You  have  sought  pleasure,"  said  she  "but  you  have 
never  loved.  Believe  me,  true  love  often  comes  late  in  life. 
Remember  Monsieur  de  Gentz,  who  fell  in  love  in  his  old  age 
with  P'anny  Ellsler,  and  left  the  Revolution  of  July  to  take 
its  course  while  he  made  a  practice  of  attending  the  dancer's 
rehearsals." 

"It  seems  to  me  unlikely,"  replied  Loustcau.  "I  can 
still  believe  in  love,  but  I  have  ceased  to  believe  in  woman. 
There  are  in  me,  I  suppose,  certain  defects  which  hinder  me 
from  being  loved,  for  I  have  often  been  thrown  over.  Per- 
haps I  have  too  strong  a  feeling  for  the  ideal — like  all  men 
who  have  looked  too  closely  into  reality " 

Madame  de  La  Baudraye  at  last  heard  the  mind  of  a  man 
who,  flung  into  the  wittiest  Parisian  circles,  represented  to  her 
its  most  daring  axioms,  its  almost  artless  depravity,  its  ad- 
vanced convictions;  who,  if  he  were  not  really  superior,  acted 
superiority  extremely  well.  Etienne,  performing  before  Dinah, 
had  all  the  success  of  a  first  night.  Paquita  of  Sancerre 
scented  the  storms,  the  atmosphere  of  Paris.  She  spent  one 
of  the  most  delightful  days  of  her  life  with  Lousteau  and 
Bianchon,  who  told  her  strange  tales  about  the  great  men  of 
the  day,  the  anecdotes  which  will  some  day  form  the  ana  of 
our  century;  sayings  and  doings  that  were  the  common  talk 
of  Paris,  but  quite  new  to  her. 

Of  course,  Lousteau  spoke  very  ill  of  the  great  female  celeb- 
rity of  Le  Berry,  with  the  obvious  intention  of  flattering 
,  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  and  leading  her  into  literary  confi- 
dences, by  suggesting  that  she  could  rival  so  great  a  writer. 
This  praise  intoxicated  Madame  de  La  Baudraye ;  and  Mon- 
sieur de  Clagny,  Monsieur  Gravier,  and  Gatien,  all  thought 
her  warmer  in  her  manner  to  Etienne  than  she  had  been  on 
the  previous  day.  Dinah's  three  attaches  greatly  regretted 
having  all  gone  to  Sancerre  to  blow  the  trumpet  in  honor  of 
the  evening  at  Anzy  ;  nothing,  to  hear  them,  had  ever  been  so 
brilliant.     The   hours   had   fled  on   feet  so  light   that    none 


86  THE  MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT. 

had  marked  their  pace.  The  two  Parisians  they  spoke  of  as 
perfect  prodigies. 

These  exaggerated  reports  loudly  proclaimed  on  the  mall 
brought  sixteen  persons  to  Anzy  that  evening,  some  in  family 
coaches,  some  in  waggonettes,  and  a  few  bachelors  on  hired 
;  saddle  horses.  By  aboUt  seven  o'clock  this  provincial  com- 
'  pany  had  made  a  more  or  less  graceful  entry  into  the  huge 
Anzy  drawing-room,  which  Dinah,  warned  of  the  invasion, 
had  lighted  up,  giving  it  all  the  lustre  it  was  capable  of  by 
taking  the  holland  covers  off  the  handsome  furniture,  for  she 
regarded  this  assembly  as  one  of  her  great  triumphs.  Lous- 
teau,  Bianchon,  and  Dinah  exchanged  meaning  looks  as  they 
studied  the  attitudes  and  listened  to  the  speeches  of  these 
visitors,  attracted  by  curiosity. 

What  invalided  ribbons,  what  ancestral  laces,  what  ancient 
flowers,  more  imaginative  than  imitative,  were  boldly  dis- 
played on  some  perennial  caps  !  The  Presidente  Boirouge, 
Bianchon's  cousin,  exchanged  a  few  words  with  the  doctor, 
from  whom  she  extracted  some  "  advice  gratis  "  by  expatiating 
on  certain  pains  in  the  chest,  which  she  declared  were  nervous, 
but  which  he  ascribed  to  chronic  indigestion. 

"  Simply  drink  a  cup  of  tea  every  day  an  hour  after  dinner, 
as  the  English  do,  and  you  will  get  over  it,  for  what  you  suffer 
from  is  an  English  malady,"  Bianchon  replied  very  gravely. 

"He  is  certainly  a  great  physician,"  said  the  presidente, 
coming  back  to  Mesdames  de  Clagny,  Popinot-Chandier,  and 
Gorju,  the  mayor's  wife. 

"They  say,"  replied  Madame  de  Clagny  behind  her  fan, 
"that  Dinah  sent  for  him,  not  so  much  with  a  view  to  the 
elections  as  to  ascertain  why  she  has  no  children." 

In  the  first  excitement  of  this  success,  Lousteau  introduced 
the  great  doctor  as  the  only  possible  candidate  at  the  ensuing 
elections.  But  Bianchon,  to  the  great  satisfaction  of  the  new 
sub-prefect,  remarked  that  it  seemed  to  him  almost  impossible 
to  give  up  science  in  favor  of  politics. 


THE  MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT.  87 

"Only  a  physician  without  a  practice,"  said  he,  "could 
care  to  be  returned  as  a  deputy.  Nominate  statesmen,  thinkers, 
men  whose  knowledge  is  universal,  and  who  are  capable  of 
placing  themselves  on  the  high  level  which  a  legislator  should 
occupy.  That  is  what  is  lacking  in  our  Chambers,  and  what 
our  country  needs." 

Two  or  three  young  ladies,  some  of  the  younger  men,  and 
the  elder  women  stared  at  Lousteau  as  if  he  were  a  mounte- 
bank. 

"Monsieur  Gatien  Boirouge  declares  that  Monsieur  Lous- 
teau makes  twenty  thousand  francs  a  year  by  his  writings," 
observed  the  mayor's  wife  to  Madame  de  Clagny.  "  Can  you 
believe  it?  " 

"  Is  it  possible  ?  Why,  a  public  prosecutor  gets  but  a  thou- 
sand crowns  !  " 

"Monsieur  Gatien,"  said  Madame  Chandler,  "get  Mon- 
sieur Lousteau  to  talk  a  little  louder.  I  have  not  heard  him 
yet." 

"  What  pretty  shoes  he  wears,"  said  Mademoiselle  Chan- 
dler to  her  brother,  "and  how  they  shine  !  " 

"Yes — patent  leather." 

"  Why  haven't  you  the  same?" 

Lousteau  began  to  feel  that  he  was  too  much  on  show,  and 
saw  in  the  manners  of  the  good  townsfolk  indications  of  the 
desires  that  had  brought  them  there. 

"What  trick  can  I  play  them?"  thought  he. 

At  this  moment  the  footman,  so-called — a  farm-servant  put 
into  livery — brought  in  the  letters  and  papers,  and  among 
them  a  packet  of  proof,  which  the  journalist  left  for  Bianchon  ; 
for  Madame  de  La  Baudraye,  on  seeing  the  parcel,  of  which 
the  form  and  string  were  obviously  from  the  printers,  ex- 
claimed— 

"What,  does  literature  pursue  you  even  here?" 

"  Not  literature,"  replied  he,  "  but  a  review  in  which  I  am 
now  finishing  a  story  to  come  out  ten  days  hence.     I  have 


88  THE  MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT. 

reached  the  stage  of  '  To  be  concluded  in  our  fiexi,^  so  I  was 
obliged  to  give  my  address  to  the  printer.  Oh,  we  eat  very 
hard-earned  bread  at  the  hands  of  these  speculators  in  black 
and  white  !  I  will  give  you  a  description  of  these  editors  of 
magazines." 

"  When  will  the  conversation  begin  ?  "  Madame  de  Clagny 
asked  of  Dinah,  as  one  might  ask :  "  When  do  the  fireworks 
gooff." 

"I  fancied  we  should  hear  some  amusing  stories,"  said 
Madame  Popinot  to  her  cousin,  the  Presidente  Boirouge. 

At  this  moment,  when  the  good  folk  of  Sancerre  were  be- 
ginning to  murmur  like  an  impatient  parquet,  Lousteau  ob- 
served that  Bianchon  was  lost  in  a  meditation  inspired  by  the 
wrapper  round  the  proofs. 

"What  is  it?"  asked  Etienne. 

"  Why,  here  is  the  most  fascinating  romance  possible  on 
some  spoilt  proof  used  to  wrap  yours  in.  Here,  read  it, 
'  Olympia  or  Roman  Revenge.'  " 

"Let  us  see,"  said  Lousteau,  taking  the  sheet  the  doctor 
held  out  to  him,  and  he  read  aloud  as  follows : 

240  OLYMPIA 

cavern.  Rinaldo,  indignant  at  his 
companions'  cowardice,  for  they  had 
no  courage  but  in  the  open  field,  and 
dared  not  venture  into  Rome,  looked 
at  them  with  scorn. 

"  Then  I  go  alone?  "  said  he.  He 
seemed  to  reflect,  and  then  he  went 
on  :  "  You  are  poor  wretches.  I  shall 
proceed  alone,  and  have  the  rich 
booty  to  myself.  You  hear  me ! 
Farewell." 

"My  captain,"  said  Lamberti,  "if 
you  should  be  captured  without 
having  succeeded  ?  " 


THE  MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT.  89 

"  God  protects  me  !  "  said  Rinaldo, 
pointing  to  the  sky. 

With  these  words  he  went  out,  and  on 
his  way  he  met  the  steward  Bracciano 

"That  is  the  end  of  the  page,"  said  Lousteau,  to  whom 
every  one  had  listened  devoutly. 

*'  He  is  reading  his  work  to  us,"  said  Gatien  to  Madame 
Popinot-Chandier's  son. 

*'  From  the  first  word,  ladies,"  said  the  journalist,  jumping 
at  an  opportunity  of  mystifying  the  natives,  "  it  is  evident 
that  the  brigands  are  in  a  cave.  But  how  careless  romancers 
of  that  date  were  as  to  details  which  are  nowadays  so  closely, 
so  elaborately  studied  under  the  name  of  '  local  color.'  If  the 
robbers  were  in  a  cavern,  instead  of  pointing  to  the  sky  he 
ought  to  have  pointed  to  the  vault  above  him.  In  spite  of 
this  inaccuracy,  Rinaldo  strikes  me  as  a  man  of  spirit,  and  his 
appeal  to  God  is  quite  Italian.  There  must  have  been  a 
touch  of  local  color  in  this  romance.  Why,  what  with  brigands, 
and  a  cavern,  and  one  Lamberti  who  could  foresee  future  pos- 
sibilities— there  is  a  whole  melodrama  in  that  page.  Add  to 
these  elements  a  little  intrigue,  a  peasant  maiden  with  her 
hair  dressed  high,  short  skirts,  and  a  hundred  or  so  of  bad 
couplets.  Oh  !  the  public  would  crowd  to  see  it  !  And  then 
Rinaldo — how  well  the  name  suits  Lafont !  By  giving  him 
black  whiskers,  tightly-fitfing  trousers,  a  cloak,  a  mustache,  a 
pistol,  and  a  peaked  hat — if  the  manager  of  the  Vaudeville 
Theatre  were  but  bold  enough  to  pay  for  a  few  newspaper 
articles,  that  would  secure  fifty  performances,  and  six  thousand 
francs  for  the  author's  rights,  if  only  I  were  to  cry  it  up  in 
my  columns. 

"  To  proceed : 

OR    ROMAN   REVENGE  219 

The  Duchess  of  Bracciano  found 
her  glove.  Adolphe,  who  had  brought 
her  back  to  the  orange  grove,  might 

h 


90  THE  MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT. 

certainly  have  supposed  that  there  was 
some  purpose  in  her  forgetfulness,  for 
at  this  moment  the  arbor  was  de- 
serted. The  sound  of  the  festivities 
was  audible  in  the  distance.  The 
puppet-show  that  had  been  promised 
had  attracted  all  the  guests  to  the 
ballroom.  Never  had  Olympia  looked 
more  beautiful.  Her  lover's  eyes  met 
hers  with  an  answering  glow,  and  they 
understood  each  other.  There  was  a 
moment  of  silence,  delicious  to  their 
souls,  and  impossible  to  describe. 
They  sat  down  on  the  same  bench 
where  they  had  sat  in  the  presence  of 
the  Cavaliere  Paluzzi  and  the  laughing 

"  Devil  take  it !  Our  Rinaldo  has  vanished  T  •"  cried  Lous- 
teau.  "  But  a  literary  man  once  started  by  this  page  would 
make  rapid  progress  in  the  comprehension  of  the  plot.  The 
Duchess  Olympia  is  a  lady  who  could  intentionally  forget  her 
gloves  in  a  deserted  arbor." 

"  Unless  she  may  be  classed  between  the  oyster  and  head- 
clerk  of  an  office,  the  two  creatures  nearest  to  marble  in 
the  zoological  kingdom,  it  is  impossible  not  to  discern  in 
Olympia "  Bianchon  began. 

"A  woman  of  thirty,"  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  hastily  in- 
posed,  fearing  some  all  too  medical  term, 

"  Then  Adolphe  must  be  two-and-twenty,"  the  doctor  went 
on,  "  for  an  Italian  woman  at  thirty  is  equivalent  to  a  Parisian 
of  forty." 

"From  these  two  facts,  the  romance  may  easily  be  recon- 
structed," said  Lousteau.  "And  this  Cavaliere  Paluzzi — what 
a  man  !  The  style  is  weak  in  these  two  passages  ;  the  author 
was  perhaps  a  clerk  in  the  excise  office,  and  wrote  the  novel 
to  pay  his  tailor." 

"In  his  time,"  said  Bianchon,  "  the  censor  flourished  ;  you 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT.  91 

must  show  as  much  indulgence  to  a  man  who  underwent  the 
ordeal  by  scissors  in  1805  as  to  those  who  went  to  the  scaffold 
in  1793." 

"Do  you  understand  in  the  least?"  asked  Madame  Gorju 
timidly  of  Madame  de  Clagny. 

The  public  prosecutor's  wife,  who,  to  use  a  phrase  of  Mon- 
sieur Gravier's,  might  have  put  a  Cossack  to  flight  in  1814, 
straightened  herself  in  her  chair  like  a  horseman  in  his  stir- 
rups, and  made  a  face  at  her  neighbor,  conveying  :  "  They  are 
looking  at  us ;  we  must  smile  as  if  we  understood." 

"Charming!"  said  the  mayoress  to  Gatien.  "Pray  go 
on,  Monsieur  Lousteau." 

Lousteau  looked  at  the  two  women,  two  Indian  idols,  and 
contrived  to  keep  his  countenance.  He  thought  it  desirable 
to  say  "Attention  !  "  before  going  on  as  follows: 

OR  ROMAN   REVENGE  209 

dress  rustled  in  the  silence.  Suddenly 
Cardinal  Borborigano  stood  before  the 
duchess. 

His  face  was  gloomy,  his  brow 
was  dark  with  clouds,  and  a  bitter 
smile  lurked  in  his  wrinkles. 

"  Madame,"  said  he,  "  you  are  under 
suspicion.  If  you  are  guilty,  fly.  If 
you  are  not,  still  fly ;  because,  whether 
criminal  or  innocent,  you  will  find 
it  easier  to  defend  yourself  from  a  dis- 
tance." 

"  I  thank  your  eminence  for  your 
solicitude,"  said  she.  "The  Duke  of 
Bracciano  will  reappear  when  I  find  it 
needful  to  prove  that  he  is  alive." 

"  Cardinal  Borborigano  !  "  exclaimed  Bianchon,  "  By  the 
pope's  keys  !  If  you  do  not  agree  with  me  that  there  is  a  mag- 
nificent creation  in  the  very  name,  if  at  those  words  '  dress 


92  THE   MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT. 

rustled  in  the  silence '  you  do  not  feel  all  the  poetry  thrown 
into  the  part  of  Schedoni  by  Mrs.  Radcliffe  in  '  The  Black 
Penitent,'  you  do  not  deserve  to  read  a  romance." 

"  For  my  part,"  said  Dinah,  who  had  some  pity  on  the  eigh- 
teen faces  gazing  up  at  Lousteau,  "  I  see  how  the  story  is  pro- 
gressing. I  know  it  all.  I  am  in  Rome  ;  I  can  see  the  body 
of  a  murdered  husband  whose  wife,  as  bold  as  she  is  wicked,  has 
made  her  bed  on  the  crater  of  a  volcano.  Every  night,  at 
every  kiss,  she  says  to  herself:  'AH  will  be  discovered  !  '  " 

"Can  you  see  her,"  said  Lousteau,  "clasping  Monsieur 
Adolphe  in  her  arms,  to  her  heart,  throwing  her  whole  life 
into  a  kiss  ?  Adolphe  I  see  as  a  well-made  young  man,  but 
not  clever — the  sort  of  man  an  Italian  woman  likes.  Rinaldo 
hovers  behind  the  scenes  of  a  plot  we  do  not  know,  but  which 
must  be  as  full  of  incident  as  a  melodrama  by  Pixerecourt. 
Or  we  can  imagine  Rinaldo  crossing  the  stage  in  the  back- 
ground like  a  figure  in  one  of  Victor  Hugo's  plays." 

"He,  perhaps,  is  the  husband,"  exclaimed  Madame  de  La 
Baudraye. 

"  Do  you  understand  anything  of  it  all  ?  "  Madame  Piedefer 
asked  of  the  presidents 

"  Why,  it  is  charming,"  said  Dinah  to  her  mother. 

All  the  good  folk  of  Sancerre  sat  with  eyes  as  large  as  five- 
franc  pieces. 

"  Go  on,  I  beg,"  said  the  hostess. 

Lousteau  went  on : 

216                            OLYMPIA 
"  Your  key " 


"  Have  you  lost  it  ?  " 

"  It  is  in  the  arbor." 

"  Let  us  hasten." 

"  Can  the  cardinal  have  taken  it?  " 

"No,  here  it  is." 

"  What  danger  we  have  escaped !  " 

Olympia   looked    at   the    key,    and 


THE   MUSE    CF   THE  DEPARTMENT.  93 

fancied  she  recognized  it  as  her  own. 
But  Rinaldo  had  changed  it ;  his 
cunning  had  triumphed;  he  had  the 
right  key.  Like  a  modern  Cartouche, 
he  was  no  less  skillful  than  bold, 
and  suspecting  that  nothing  but  a 
vast  treasure  could  require  a  duchess 
to  carry  it  constantly  at  her  belt. 

"Guess!"  cried  Lousteau.  "The  corresponding  page  is 
not  here.     We  must  look  to  page  212  to  relieve  our  anxiety." 

212  OLYMPIA 

"  If  the  key  had  been  lost  ?  " 

"  He  would  now  be  a  dead  man." 

"  Dead  ?  But  ought  you  not  to 
grant  the  last  request  he  made,  and 
to  give  him  his  liberty  on  the  con- 
ditions  " 

"  You  do  not  know  him." 

"  But " 

"  Silence  !  I  took  you  for  my  lover, 
not  for  my  confessor." 

Adolphe  was  silent. 

"And  then  comes  an  exquisite  galloping  goat,  a  tail-piece 
drawn  by  Normand,  and  cut  by  Duplat.  The  names  are 
signed,"  said  Lousteau. 

"Well,  and  then?"  said  such  of  the  audience  as  under- 
stood. 

"That  is  the  end  of  the  chapter,"  said  Lousteau.  "The 
fact  of  this  tail-piece  changes  my  views  as  to  the  authorship. 
To  have  his  book  gotten  up,  under  the  Empire,  with  vignettes 
engraved  on  wood,  the  writer  must  have  been  a  councilor  of 
State,  or  Madame  Barthelemy-Hadot,  or  the  late  lamented 
Desforges,  or  Sewrin." 

"'Adolphe  was  silent.'  Ah!"  cried  Bianchon,  "the 
duchess  must  have  been  under  thirty." 


94  THE   MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT. 

"  If  there  is  no  more,  invent  a  conclusion,"  said  Madame 
de  La  Baudraye. 

"You  see,"  said  Lousteau,  "the  waste-sheet  has  been 
printed  fair  on  one  side  only.  In  printer's  lingo,  it  is  a  back 
sheet,  or,  to  make  it  clearer,  the  other  side  which  would  have 
to  be  printed  is  covered  all  over  with  pages  printed  one  above 
another,  all  experiments  in  making  up.  It  would  take  too 
long  to  explain  to  you  all  the  complications  of  a  making-up 
sheet ;  but  you  may  understand  that  it  will  show  no  more  trace 
of  the  first  twelve  pages  that  were  printed  on  it  than  you  would 
in  the  least  remember  the  first  stroke  of  the  bastinado  if  a 
pasha  had  condemned  you  to  have  fifty  on  the  soles  of  your 
feet." 

"I  am  quite  bewildered,"  said  Madame  Popinot-Chandier 
to  Monsieur  Gravier.  "  I  am  vainly  trying  to  connect  the 
councilor  of  state,  the  cardinal,  the  key,  and  the  making- 
up " 

"You  have  not  the  key  to  the  jest,"  said  Monsieur  Gra- 
vier. "Well !  no  more  have  I,  fair  lady,  if  that  can  comfort 
you." 

"But  here  is  another  sheet,"  said  Bianchon,  hunting  on 
the  table  where  the  proofs  had  been  laid. 

"  Capital  !  "  said  Lousteau,  "and  it  is  complete  and  unin- 
jured !  It  is  signed  *  IV  ;  J,  Second  Edition.'  Ladies,  the 
figure  IV  means  that  this  is  part  of  the  fourth  volume.  The 
letter  J,  the  tenth  letter  of  the  alphabet,  shows  that  this  is  the 
tenth  sheet.  And  it  is  perfectly  clear  to  me  that,  in  spite  of 
any  publisher's  tricks,  this  romance,  in  four  duodecimo 
volumes,  had  a  great  success,  since  it  came  to  a  second  edi- 
tion.    We  will  read  on  and  find  a  clue  to  the  mystery." 

OR    ROMAN    REVENGE  217 

corridor;    but    now    finding    that    he 
was  pursued  by  the   duchess'  people 


THE  MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT.  95 


"Oh,  get  along  ! 


"But,"  said  Madame  de  La  Baudraye,  "  some  important 
events  have  taken  place  between  your  waste  sheet  and  this 
page." 

"This  complete  sheet,  madame,  this  precious  make-up 
sheet.  But  does  the  waste  sheet  in  which  the  duchess  forgets 
her  gloves  in  the  arbor  belong  to  the  fourth  volume  ?  Well, 
deuce  take  it — to  proceed  : 

Rinaldo  saw  no  safer  refuge  than  to 
make  forthwith  for  the  cellar  where 
the  treasures  of  the  Bracciano  fartiily 
no  doubt  lay  hid.  As  light  of  foot 
as  Camilla  sung  by  the  Latin  poet, 
he  flew  to  the  entrance  to  the  Baths 
of  Vespasian.  The  torchlight  al- 
ready flickered  on  the  walls  when 
Rinaldo,  with  the  readiness  bestowed 
on  him  by  nature,  discovered  the 
door  concealed  in  the  stone  work, 
and  suddenly  vanished.  A  hideous 
thought  then  flashed  on  Rinaldo's 
brain,  like  lightning  rending  a  cloud  : 
He    was    imprisoned !      He    felt   the 

"  Yes,  this  make-up  sheet  follows  the  waste  sheet.  The  last 
page  of  the  damaged  sheet  was  212,  and  this  is  217.  In  fact, 
since  Rinaldo,  who  in  the  earlier  fragment  stole  the  key  of  the 
duchess'  treasure  by  exchanging  it  for  another  very  much  like 
it,  is  now — on  the  make-up  sheet — in  the  palace  of  the  Dukes  of 
Bracciano,  the  story  seems  to  me  to  be  advancing  to  a  conclu- 
sion of  some  kind.  I  hope  it  is  as  clear  to  you  as  it  be- 
comes to  me.  I  understand  that  the  festivities  are  over,  the 
lovers  have  returned  to  the  Bracciano  Palace ;  it  is  night — one 
o'clock  in  the  morning.     Rinaldo  will  have  a  good  time." 

"And  Adolphe,  too!"  said  President  Boirouge,  who  was 
considered  rather  free  in  his  speech. 


96  THE   MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT. 

"And  the  style!"  said  Bianchon.  "  Rinaldo,  who  saw 
no  better  refuge  than  to  make  for  the  cellar." 

"It  is  quite  clear  that  neither  Maradan,  nor  Treuttel  and 
Wurtz,  nor  Doguereau  were  the  printers,"  said  Lousteau,  "  for 
they  employed  proof-readers,  a  luxury  in  which  our  publishers 
might  very  well  indulge,  and  the  writers  of  the  present  day 
would  benefit  greatly.      Some  scrubby  pamphlet-printer  on 

the  quay " 

"What   quay?"  a  lady  asked  of  her  neighbor.     "They 

spoke  of  baths " 

•  "  Pray  go  on,"^aid  Madame  de  La  Baudraye. 
"At  any  rate,  it  is  not  by  a  councilor,"  said  Bianchon. 
"It  may  be  by  Madame  Hadot,"  replied  Lousteau. 
"  What  has  Madame  Hadot  of  La  Charite  to  do  with  it?" 
Mme.  the  Presidente  asked  of  her  son. 

"This  Madame  Hadot,  my  dear  friend,"  the  hostess  an- 
swered, "  was  an  authoress,  who  lived  at  the  time  of  the  Con- 
sulate." 

"What,  did  women  write  in  the  Emperor's  time?"  asked 
Madame  Popinot-Chandier. 

"  What  of  Madame  de  Genlis  and  Madame  de  Stael  ?  "  cried 
the  public  prosecutor,  piqued  on  Dinah's  account  by  this  re- 
mark. 

"To  be  sure!" 

"I  beg  you  to  go  on,"  said   Madame   de  La  Baudraye  to 

Lousteau. 

Lousteau  went  on,  saying  :   "  Page  218. 

218  OLYMPIA 

wall  with  uneasy  haste,  and  gave  a 
shriek  of  despair  when  he  had  vainly 
sought  any  trace  of  a  secret  spring.  It 
was  impossible  to  ignore  the  horrible 
truth.  The  door,  cleverly  constructed 
to  serve  the  vengeful  purposes  of  the 
duchess,  could    not   be   opened   from 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT.  97 

within.  Rinaldo  laid  his  cheek  against 
the  wall  in  various  spots;  nowhere 
could  he  feel  the  warmer  air  from  the 
passage.  He  had  hoped  he  might 
find  a  crack  that  would  show  him 
where  there  was  an  opening  in  the 
wall,  but  nothing,  nothing !  The 
whole  seemed  to  be  of  one  block  of 
marble. 

Then   he   gave    a  hollow  roar  like 
that  of  a  hyaena 

"  Well,  we  fancied  that  the  cry  of  the  hyaena  was  a  recent 
invention  of  our  own  !  "  said  Lousteau,  ''and  it  was  already 
known  to  the  literature  of  the  Empire.  It  is  even  introduced 
with  a  certain  skill  in  natural  history,  as  we  see  in  the  word 
'hollow.'" 

"  Make  no  more  comments,  monsieur,"  said  Madame  de  La 
Baudraye. 

"There,  you  see!"  cried  Bianchon.  "Interest,  the  ro- 
mantic demon,  has  you  by  the  collar,  as  he  had  me  a  while 
ago." 

"Read  on,"  cried  de  Clagny,  "I  understand." 

"  What  a  coxcomb  !  "  said  the  presiding  judge  in  a  whisper 
to  his  neighbor,  the  sub-prefect. 

"  He  wants  to  please  Madame  de  La  Baudraye,"  replied  the 
new  sub-prefect. 

"Well,  then,  I  will  read  straight  on,"  said  Lousteau 
solemnly. 

Everybody  listened  in  dead  silence. 

OR    ROMAN    REVENGE  2I9 

A  deep  groan  answered  Rinaldo's 
cry,  but  in  his  alarm  he  took  it  for  an 
echo,  so  weak  and  hollow  was  the 
sound.  It  could  not  proceed  from  any 
human  breast. 


98  THE  MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMEN'J, 

"  Santa  Maria  !  "  said  the  voice. 

"  If  I  stir  from  this  spot  I  shall  never 
find  it  again,"  thought  Rinaldo,  when 
he  had  recovered  his  usual  presence 
of  mind.  "  If  I  knock,  I  shall  be 
discovered.     What  am  I  to  do  ?  " 

"  Who  is  here?"  asked  the  voice. 

"  Halloo  !  "  cried  the  brigand  ;  "  do 
the  toads  here  talk?" 

"I    am    the    Duke   of     Bracciano. 


220  OLYMPIA 

Whoever  you  may  be,  if  you  are  not  a 
follower  of  the  duchess',  in  the  name  of 
all  the  saints,  come  toward  me." 

"  I  should  have  to  know  where  to  find 
you.  Monsieur  le  Due,"  said  Rinaldo, 
with  the  insolence  of  a  man  who  knows 
himself  to  be  necessary. 

"  I  can  see  you,  my  friend,  for  my 
eyes  are  accustomed  to  the  darkness. 
Listen  :  walk  straightforward — good  ; 
now  turn  to  the  left — come  on — this 
way.  There,  we  are  close  to  each 
other." 

Rinaldo,  putting  out  his  hands  as  a 
precaution,  touched  some  iron  bars. 

"  I  am  being  deceived,"  cried  the 
bandit. 

"  No,   you    are   touching   my    cage. 


OR   ROMAN   REVENGE  221 

Sit  down  on  a  broken  shaft  of  por- 
phyry that  is  there." 

"  How  can  the  Duke  of  Bracciano 
be  in  a  cage  ?  "  asked  the  brigand. 

"  My  friend,  I  have  been  here  for 
thirty  months,  standing   up,  unable  to 


THE  MUSE    OF  THE  DEPARTMENT.  99 

sit    down But    you,    who    are 

you  ?  " 

"  I  am  Rinaldo,  prince  of  the  Cam- 
pagna,  the  chief  of  four-and-twenty 
brave  men  whom  the  law  describes  as 
miscreants,  whom  all  the  ladies  ad- 
mire, and  whom  judges  hang  in  obe- 
dience to  an  old  habit." 

"  God  be  praised !  I  am  saved. 
An  honest  man  would  have  been 
afraid,  whereas  I  am  sure  of  coming 


222  OLYMPIA 

to  an  understanding  with  you,"  criea 
the  duke.     "  Oh,  my  worthy  deliverer, 
you  must  be  armed  to  the  teeth." 
"E  verissimo  "  (most  true). 

"  Do  you  happen  to  have " 

"  Yes  ;  files,  pincers  —  Corpo  di 
Bacco  !  (body  of  Bacchus).  I  came 
to  borrow  the  treasures  of  the  Brac- 
ciani  on  a  long  loan." 

"  You  will  earn  a  handsome  share 
of  them  very  legitimately,  my  good 
Rinaldo,    and    we    may    possibly    go 

man-hunting  together " 

"  You  surprise  me,  eccellenza  !  " 
"  Listen  to  me,  Rinaldo.  I  will 
say  nothing  of  the  craving  for  ven- 
geance that  gnaws  at  my  heart.  I 
have  been  here  for  thirty  months 
— you,    too,     are     Italian — you     will 

OR   ROMAN    REVENGE  223 


understand  me !  Alas,  my  friend, 
my  fatigue  and  my  horrible  incarcera- 
tion are  as  nothing  in  comparison  with 
the  rage  that  devours  my  soul.     The 


100  THE  MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT. 

Duchess  of  Bracciano  is  still  one  of 
the  most  beautiful  women  in    Rome. 
I  loved  her  well  enough  to  be  jea' 
ous " 

"  You,  her  husband  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I  was  wrong,  no  doubt." 

"  It  is  not  the  correct  thing,  to  be 
sure,"  said  Rinaldo. 

"  My  jealousy  was  roused  by  the 
duchess'  conduct,"  the  duke  went 
on.  "  The  event  proved  me  right. 
A  young  Frenchman  fell  in  love  with 
Olympia,  and  she  loved  him.  I 
had  proofs  of  their  reciprocal  affection 

''Pray  excuse  me,  ladies,"  said  Lousteau,  "but  I  find  it 
impossible  to  go  on  without  remarking  to  you  how  direct 
this  Empire  literature  is,  going  to  the  point  without  any  de- 
tails, a  characteristic,  as  it  seems  to  me,  of  a  primitive  time. 
The  literature  of  that  period  holds  a  place  between  the  sum- 
maries of  chapters  in  '  Telemaque  '  and  the  categorical  reports 
of  a  public  office.  It  had  ideas,  but  refrained  from  express- 
ing them,  it  was  so  scornful !  It  was  observant,  but  would 
not  communicate  its  observations  to  any  one,  it  was  so 
miserly  !  Nobody  but  Fouche  ever  mentioned  what  he  had 
observed.  'At  that  time,'  to  quote  the  words  of  one  of  the 
most  imbecile  critics  in  the  'Revue  des  DeuxMondes,'  'lit- 
erature was  content  with  a  clear  sketch  and  the  simple  outline 
of  all  antique  statues.  It  did  not  dance  over  its  periods.' 
I  should  think  not  !  It  had  no  periods  to  dance  over.  It 
had  no  words  to  make  play  with.  You  were  plainly  told  that 
Lubin  loved  Toinette  ;  that  Toinette  did  not  love  Lubin ; 
that  Lubin  killed  Toinette  and  the  police  caught  Lubin,  who 
was  put  in  prison,  tried  at  the  assizes,  and  guillotined.  A 
strong  sketch,  a  clear  outline  !  What  a  noble  drama  !  Well, 
in  these  days  the  barbarians  make  words  sparkle." 
"Like  hair  in  a  frost,"  said  Monsieur  de  Clagny. 


THE  MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT.  101 

"  So  those  are  the  airs  you  affect  ;  "*  retorted  Lousteau. 

"What  can  he  mean?  "  asked  Madame  de  Clagny,  puzzled 
by  this  vile  pun. 

"  I  seem  to  be  walking  in  the  dark,"  replied  the  mayoress. 

"The  jest  would  be  lost  in  an  explanation,"  remarked 
Gaticn. 

"Nowadays,"  Lousteau  went  on,  "a  novelist  draws  char- 
acters, and,  instead  of  a  'simple  outline,'  he  unveils  the 
human  heart  and  gives  you  some  interest  either  in  Lubin  or 
in  Toinette." 

"For  my  part,  I  am  alarmed  at  the  progress  of  public 
knowledge  in  the  matter  of  literature,"  said  Bianchon. 
"Like  the  Russians,  beaten  by  Charles  XII.,  who  at  last 
learned  the  art  of  war,  the  reader  has  learned  the  art  of  writ- 
ing. Formerly  all  that  was  expected  of  a  romance  was  that 
it  should  be  interesting.  As  to  style,  no  one  cared  for  that, 
not  even  the  author ;  as  to  ideas — zero ;  as  to  local  color — 
noil  est.  By  degrees  the  reader  has  demanded  style,  interest, 
pathos,  and  complete  information  ;  he  insists  on  the  five 
literary  senses — Invention,  Style,  Thought,  Learning,  and 
Feeling.  Then  came  criticism  commenting  on  everything. 
The  critic,  incapable  of  inventing  anything  but  calumny,  pro- 
nounces every  work  that  proceeds  from  a  not  perfect  brain  to 
be  deformed.  Some  magicians,  as  Walter  Scott,  for  instance, 
having  appeared  in  the  world,  who  combined  all  the  five  liter- 
ary senses,  such  writers  as  had  but  one — wit  or  learning,  style 
or  feeling — these  cripples,  these  acephalous,  maimed,  or  pur- 
blind creatures — in  a  literary  sense — have  taken  to  shrieking 

*The  rendering  given  above  is  only  intended  to  link  the  various 
speeches  into  coherence;  it  has  no  resemblance  with  the  French.  In  the 
original,  "  Font  chatoyer  les  mots." 

"  Et  quelquefois  les  maris,"  dit  Monsieur  de  Clagny. 

"Ah!   Lousteau!  vous  vous  donnez  de  ces  R-li"  (airs-li). 

Literally:  "Make  words  brilliant."  "And  sometimes  the  dead."  "Ah, 
are  those  the  airs  you  assume  ?  "—the  play  on  the  insertion  of  the  letter  1< 
{jiiuts,  inorts)  has  no  meaning  in   English. 


102  THE   MUSE    OF  THE  DEPARTMENT. 

that  all  is  lost,  and  have  preached  a  crusade  against  men  who 
were  spoiling  the  business,  or  have   denounced   their  works." 

"The  history  of  your  last  literary  quarrel!"  Dinah  ob- 
served. 

"For  pity's  sake,  come  back  to  the  Duke  of  Bracciano," 
cried  Monsieur  de  Clagny. 

To  the  despair  of  all  the  company,  Lousteau  went  on  with 
the  make-up  sheet, 

224  OLYMPIA 

I  then  wished  to  make  sure  of  my 
misfortune  that  I  might  be  avenged 
under  the  protection  of  Providence 
and  the  Law.  The  duchess  guessed 
my  intentions.  We  were  at  war  in 
our  purposes  before  we  fought  with 
poison  in  our  hands.  We  tried  to 
tempt  each  other  to  such  confidence 
as  we  could  not  feel,  I  to  induce  her 
to  drink  a  potion,  she  to  get  posses- 
sion of  me.  She  was  a  woman,  and 
she  won  the  day ;  for  women  have  a 
snare  more  than  we  men.  I  fell  into 
it — I  was  happy  ;  but  I  awoke  next 
day  in  this  iron  cage.  All  through  the 
day  I  bellowed  with  rage  in  the  dark- 

OR    ROMAN    REVENGE  22$ 

ness  of  this  cellar,  over  which  is  the 
duchess'  bedroom.  At  night  an  in- 
genious counterpoise  acting  as  a  lift 
raised  me  through  the  floor,  and  I  saw 
the  duchess  in  her  lover's  arms.  She 
threw  me  a  piece  of  bread,  my  daily 
pittance. 

"  Thus  have  I  lived  for  thirty 
months !  From  this  marble  prison 
my  cries  can  reach  no  ear.     There  is 


THE   MUSE    OF  THE  DEPARTMENT.  103 

no  chance  for  me.  I  will  hope  no 
more.  Indeed,  the  duchess'  room  is 
at  the  farthest  end  of  the  palace,  and 
when  I  am  carried  up  there  none  can 
hear  my  voice.  Each  time  I  see  my 
wife  she  shows  me  the   poison   I   had 

226  OLYMPIA 

prepared  for  her  and  her  lover.  I 
crave  it  for  myself,  but  she  will  not  let 
me  die ;  she  gives  me  bread,  and  1  eat 
it. 

"  I  have  done  well  to  eat  and  live ; 
I  had  not  reckoned  on  robbers  !  " 

"  Yes,  eccellenza,  when  those  fools 
the  honest  men  arc  asleep,  we  are  wide 
awake." 

"  Oh,  Rinaldo,  all  I  possess  shall  be 
yours ;  wc  will  share  my  treasure  like 
brothers;  I  would  give  you  every- 
thing— even  to  my  duchy " 

"  Eccellenza,  procure  from  the  pope 
an  absolution  w  articulo  mortis  (at 
the  point  of  death).  It  would  be  of 
more  use  to  me  in  my  walk  of  life." 

OR    ROMAN    REVENGE  227 

"  What  you  will.  Only  file  through 
the  bars  of  my  cage,  and  lend  me  your 
dagger.  Wc  have  but  little  time — 
quick,  quick  !  Oh,  if  my  teeth  were 
but  files !  I  have  tried  to  eat  through 
this  iron." 

"  Eccellenza,"  said  Rinaldo,  "  I 
have  already  filed  through  one  bar." 

"You  are  a  god  !  " 

"  Your  wife  was  at  the  ffite  given 
by  the  Princess  Villaviciosa.  She 
brought  home  her  litlle  Frenchman; 


104  THE  MUSE   OF  THE  DEPARTMENT. 

she  is  drunk  with  love.  You  have 
plenty  of  time." 

•'  Have  you  done  ?  " 

"Yes." 

228  OLYMPIA 

"Your  dagger?"  said  the  duke 
eagerly  to  the  brigand." 

"  Here  it  is." 

"  Good.  I  hear  the  clatter  of  the 
spring." 

"  Do  not  forget  me ! "  cried  the 
robber,  who  knew  what  gratitude 
was. 

"No  more  than  my  father,"  cried 
the  duke. 

"  Farewell,"  said  Rinaldo.  "  Lord ! 
How  he  flies  up!  "  he  added  to  him- 
self as  the  duke  disappeared.  "  No 
more  than  his  father !  If  that  is  all 
he  means  to  do  for  me.  And  I  had 
sworn  a  vow  never  to  injure  a 
woman ! " 

But  let   us   leave  the  robber   for  a 

OR   ROMAN   REVENGE  229 

moment  to  his  meditations  and  go 
up,  like  the  duke,  to  the  rooms  in  the 
palace. 

"Another  tail-piece,  a  Cupid  on  a  snail.     And  page  230  is 

blank,"  said    the  journalist.      "Then    there   are  two    more 

blank  pages  before  we  come  to  the  word  it  is  such  joy  to 

write  when  one  is  unhappily  so  happy  as  to  be  a  novelist — 

*  Conclusion  ! '  " 

CONCLUSION. 

Never  had  the  duchess  been  more 
lovely ;  she  came  from  her  bath 
clothed  like  a  goddess,  and  on  seeing 


THE  MUSE    OF  TtJE  DEPARTMENT.  105 

234  OLYMPIA 

Adolphe    voluptuously    reclining    on 
piles  of  cushions — 

"You  are  beautilul,"  said  she. 

"And  so  are  you,  Olympia !  " 

"And  you  still  love  me  ?  " 
"  More  and  more,"  said  he. 

"Ah,  none  but  a  frenchman  knows 
how  to  love !  "  cried  the  duchess.  "  Do 
you  love  me  well  to-night?" 

"  Yes." 

"  Then  come  !  " 

And  with  an  impulse  of  love  and 
hate — whether  it  was  that  Cardinal 
Borborigano  had  reminded  her  of  her 
husband,  or  that  she  felt  unwonted 
passion  to  display,  she  pressed  the 
springs  and  held  out  her  arms. 

"  That  is  all,"  said  Lousteau,  "  for  the  foreman  has  torn  off 
the  rest  in  wrapping  up  my  proofs.  But  it  is  enough  to  show 
that  the  author  was  full  of  promise." 

"I  cannot  make  head  or  tail  of  it,"  said  Gatien  Boirouge, 
who  was  the  first  to  break  the  silence  of  the  party  from  San- 
cerre. 

"  Nor  I,"  replied  Monsieur  Gravier. 

"And  yet  it  is  a  novel  of  the  time  of  the  Empire,"  said 
I.ousteau. 

"  By  the  way  in  which  the  brigand  is  made  to  speak,"  said 
Monsieur  Gravier,  "  it  is  evident  that  the  author  knew  nothing 
of  Italy.  Banditti  do  not  allow  themselves  such  graceful  con- 
ceits." 

Madame  Gorju  came  up  to  Bianchon,  seeing  him  pensive, 
and  with  a  glance  toward  her  daughter,  Mademoiselle  Euph- 
6mie  Gorju,  the  owner  of  a  fairly  good  fortune — "  What  a 
rhodomontade  !  "  said  she.  "The  prescriptions  you  write 
are  worth  more  than  all  that  rubbish." 


106  THE   MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT. 

The  mayoress  had  elaborately  worked  up  this  speech,  which, 
in  her  opinion,  showed  strong  judgment. 

"  Well,  madame,  we  must  be  lenient,  we  have  but  twenty 
pages  out  of  a  thousand,"  said  Bianchon,  looking  at  Made- 
moiselle Gorju,  whose  figure  threatened  terrible  things  after 
the  birth  of  her  first  child. 

"Well,  Monsieur  de  Clagny,"  said  Lousteau,  "we  were 
talking  yesterday  of  the  forms  of  revenge  invented  by  hus- 
bands.    What  do  you  say  to  those  invented  by  wives  ?  " 

"  I  say,"  replied  the  public  prosecutor,  "  that  the  romance 
is  not  by  a  councilor  of  State,  but  by  a  woman.  For  extrav- 
agant inventions  the  imagination  of  women  far  outdoes  that 
of  men ;  witness  *  Frankenstein  '  by  Mrs.  Shelley,  '  Leone 
Lconi '  by  George  Sand,  the  works  of  Anne  Radcliffe,  and 
the  '  Nouveau  Promethee  '  (New  Prometheus)  of  Camille  de 
Maupin." 

Dinah  looked  steadily  at  Monsieur  de  Clagny,  making  him 
feel,  by  an  expression  that  gave  him  a  chill,  that,  in  spite  of 
the  illustrious  examples  he  had  quoted,  she  regarded  this  as  a 
reflection  on  Paquita  la  Sevillane. 

Pooh!  "  said  little  La  Baudraye,  "the  Duke  of  Bracciano, 
.whom  his  wife  puts  into  a  cage,  and  to  whom  she  shows  her- 
self every  night  in  the  arms  of  her  lover,  will  kill  her — and 
do  you  call  that  revenge  ?  Our  laws  and  our  society  are  far 
more  cruel." 

"  How  so  ?  "  asked  Lousteau. 

"Why,  little  La  Baudraye  is  talking!"  said  Monsieur 
Boirouge  to  his  wife. 

"Why,  the  woman  is  left  to  live  on  a  small  allowance,  the 
world  turns  its  back  on  her,  she  has  no  more  finery,  and  no 
respect  paid  her — the  two  things  which,  in  my  opinion,  are 
the  sum-total  of  woman,"  said  the  suddenly  revived  little  old 
man. 

"But  she  has  happiness!"  said  Madame  de  La  Baudraye 
sententiously. 


o 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT.  107 

*'No,"  said  the  master  of  the  house,  lighting  his  candle  to 
go  to  bed,  "  for  she  has  a  lover  !  " 

"For  a  man  who  thinks  of  nothing  but  his  vine-stocks  and 
poles,  he  has  some  spunk  !  "  said  Lousteau. 

"Well,  he  must  have  something  !  "  replied  Bianchon. 

Madame  de  La  Baudraye,  the  only  person  who  could  hear 
Bianchon's  remark,  laughed  so  knowingly,  and  at  the  same 
time  so  bitterly,  that  the  physician  could  guess  the  mystery  of 
this  woman's  life;  her  premature  wrinkles  had  been  puzzling 
him  all  day. 

But  Dinah  did  not  guess,  on  her  part,  the  ominous  prophecy 
contained  for  her  in  her  husband's  little  speech,  which  her 
kind  old  Abbe  Buret,  if  he  had  been  alive,  would  not  have 
failed  to  elucidate.  Little  La  Baudraye  had  detected  in 
Dinah's  eyes,  when  she  glanced  at  the  journalist  returning  the 
ball  of  his  jests,  that  swift  and  luminous  flash  of  tenderness 
which  gilds  the  gleam  of  a  woman's  eye  when  prudence  is 
cast  to  the  winds,  and  she  is  fairly  carried  away.  Dinah  paid 
no  more  heed  to  her  husband's  hint  to  her  to  observe  the  pro- 
prieties than  Lousteau  had  done  to  Dinah's  significant  warn- 
ings on  the  day  of  his  arrival. 

Any  other  man  than  Bianchon  would  have  been  surprised 
at  Lousteau's  immediate  success ;  but  he  was  so  much  the 
doctor,  that  he  was  not  even  nettled  at  Dinah's  marked  prefer- 
ence for  the  newspaper-  rather  than  the  prescription-writer ! 
In  fact,  Dinah,  herself  famous,  was  naturally  more  alive  to  wit 
than  to  fame.  Love  generally  prefers  contrast  to  similitude. 
Everything  was  against  the  physician — his  frankness,  his  sim- 
plicity, and  his  profession.  And  this  is  why:  women  who 
want  to  love — and  Dinah  wanted  to  love  as  much  as  to  be 
loved — have  an  instinctive  aversion  for  men  who  are  devoted 
to  an  absorbing  occupation  ;  in  spite  of  superiority,  they  are 
all  women  in  the  matter  of  encroachment.  Lousteau,  a  poet 
and  journalist,  and  a  libertine  with  a  veneer  of  misanthropy, 
had  that  tinsel  of  the  intellect,  and  led  the  half-idle  life  that 


108  THE  MUSE   OF  THE  DEPARTMENT. 

attracts  women.  The  blunt  good  sense  and  keen  insight  of 
the  really  great  man  weighed  upon  Dinah,  who  would  not  con- 
fess her  own  smallness  even  to  herself.  She  said  in  her  mind — 
''The  doctor  is  perhaps  the  better  man,  but  I  do  not  like 
him." 

Then,  again,  she  reflected  on  his  professional  duties,  won- 
dering whether  a  woman  could  ever  be  anything  but  a  subject 
to  a  medical  man,  who  saw  so  many  subjects  in  the  course  of 
a  day's  work.  The  first  sentence  of  the  aphorism  written  by 
Bianchon  in  her  album  was  a  medical  observation  strikinii  so 
directly  at  woman,  that  Dinah  could  not  fail  to  be  hit  by  it. 
And  then  Bianchon  was  leaving  on  the  morrow ;  his  practice 
required  his  return.  What  woman,  short  of  having  Cupid's 
mythological  dart  in  her  heart,  could  decide  in  so  short  a  time  ? 

These  little  things — which  lead  to  such  great  catastrophes — 
having  been  seen  in  a  mass  by  Bianchon,  he  pronounced  the 
verdict  he  had  come  to  as  to  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  in  a 
few  words  to  Lousteau,  to  the  journalist's  great  amazement. 

While  the  two  friends  stood  talking  together,  a  storm  was 
gathering  in  the  Sancerre  circle,  who  could  not  in  the  least 
understand  Lousteau's  paraphrases  and  commentaries,  and 
who  vented  it  on  their  hostess.  Far  from  finding  in  his 
talk  the  romance  which  the  public  prosecutor,  the  sub-prefect, 
the  presiding  judge,  and  his  deputy,  Lebas,  had  discovered 
there — to  say  nothing  of  Monsieur  de  La  Baudraye  and  Dinah 
— the  ladies  now  gathered  round  the  tea-table,  took  the  matter 
as  a  practical  joke,  and  accused  the  Muse  of  Sancerre  of  having 
a  finger  in  it.  They  had  all  looked  forward  to  a  delightful 
evening,  and  had  all  in  vain  strained  every  faculty  of  their 
minds.  Nothing  makes  provincial  folk  so  angry  as  the  notion 
of  having  been  a  laughing-stock  for  Paris  folk. 

Madame  Piedefer  left  the  table  to  say  to  her  daughter :  "  Do 
go  and  talk  to  the  ladies  ;  they  are  quite  annoyed  by  your 
behavior." 

Lousteau  could  not  fail  to  see   Dinah's  great  superiority 


THE  MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT.  109 

over  the  best  women  of  Sancerre;  she  was  better  dressed,  her 
movements  were  graceful,  her  complexion  was  exquisitely 
white  by  candle-light — in  short,  she  stood  out  against  this 
background  of  old  faces,  shy  and  ill-dressed  girls,  like  a  queen 
in  the  midst  of  her  court.  Visions  of  Paris  faded  from  his 
brain ;  Lousteau  was  accepting  the  provincial  surroundings  ; 
and  while  he  had  too  much  imagination  to  remain  unimpressed 
by  the  royal  splendor  of  this  castle,  the  beautiful  carvings,  and 
the  antique  beauty  of  the  rooms,  he  had  also  too  much  ex- 
perience to  overlook  the  value  of  the  personality  which  com- 
pleted this  gem  of  the  Renaissance.  So  by  the  time  when  the 
visitors  from  Sancerre  had  taken  their  leave  one  by  one — for 
they  had  an  hour's  drive  before  them — when  no  one  remained 
in  the  drawing-room  but  Monsieur  de  Clagny,  Monsieur  Le- 
bas,  Gatien,  and  Monsieur  Gravier,  who  were  all  to  sleep  at 
Anzy — the  journalist  had  already  changed  his  mind  about 
Dinah.  His  opinion  had  gone  through  the  evolution  that 
Madame  de  La  Baudraye  had  so  audaciously  prophesied  at 
their  first  meeting. 

"  Ah,  what  things  they  will  say  about  us  on  the  drive 
home  !  "  cried  the  mistress  of  the  house,  as  she  returned  to 
the  drawing-room  after  seeing  the  president  and  his  wife 
to  their  carriage  with  Madame  and  Mademoiselle  Popinot- 
Chandier. 

The  rest  of  the  evening  had  its  pleasant  side.  In  the  in- 
timacy of  a  small  party  each  one  brought  to  the  conversation 
his  contribution  of  epigrams  on  the  figure  the  visitors  from 
Sancerre  had  cut  during  Lousteau's  comments  on  the  paper 
wrapped  round  the  proofs. 

"  My  dear  fellow,"  said  Bianchon  to  Lousteau  as  they  went 
to  bed — they  had  an  enormous  room  with  two  beds  in  it — 
"  you  will  be  the  happy  man  of  this  woman's  choice — nee 
Piedefer  !" 

"Do  you  think  so?" 

"  It  is  quite  natural.     You  arc  supposed  here  to  have  had 


110  THE  MUSE    OF  THE  DEPARTMENT 

many  mistresses  in  Paris ;  and  to  a  woman  there  is  something 
indescribably  inviting  in  a  man  whom  other  women  favor — 
something  attractive  and  fascinating  ;  is  it  that  she  prides  her- 
self on  being  longer  remembered  than  all  the  rest  ?  that  she 
appeals  to  his  experience,  as  a  sick  man  will  pay  more  to  a 
famous  physician  ?  or  that  she  is  flattered  by  the  revival  of  a 
world-worn  heart?" 

"Vanity  and  the  senses  count  for  so  much  in  love  affairs," 
said  Lousteau,  "that  there  may  be  some  truth  in  all  those 
hypotheses.  However,  if  I  remain,  it  will  be  in  consequence 
of  the  certificate  of  innocence,  without  ignorance,  that  you 
have  given  Dinah.     She  is  handsome,  is  she  not  ?  " 

"Love  will  make  her  beautiful,"  said  the  doctor.  "  And, 
after  all,  she  will  be  a  rich  widow  some  day  or  other  !  And 
a  child  would  secure  her  the  life-interest  in  the  Master  of  La 
Baudraye's  fortune " 

"Why,  it  is  quite  an  act  of  virtue  to  make  love  to  her," 
said  Lousteau,  rolling  himself  up  in  the  bed-clothes,  "and 
to-morrow,  with  your  help — yes,  to-morrow,  I — well,  good- 
night." 

On  the  following  day,  Madame  de  La  Baudraye,  to  whom 
her  husband  had  six  months  since  given  a  pair  of  horses, 
which  he  also  used  in  the  fields,  and  an  old  carriage  that 
rattled  on  the  road,  decided  that  she  would  take  Bianchon  so 
;far  on  his  way  as  Cosne,  where  he  would  get  into  the  Lyons 
diligence  as  it  passed  through.  She  also  took  her  mother  and 
Lousteau,  but  she  intended  to  drop  her  mother  at  La  Bau- 
draye to  go  on  to  Cosne  with  the  two  Parisians,  and  return 
alone  with  Etienne.  She  was  elegantly  dressed,  as  the  jour- 
nalist at  once  perceived — bronze  kid  shoes,  gray  silk  stockings, 
a  muslin  dress,  a  green  silk  scarf  with  shaded  fringe  at  the 
ends,  and  a  pretty,  black  lace  bonnet  with  flowers  in  it.  As 
to  Lousteau,  the  wretch  had  assumed  his  war-paint — patent- 
leather  shoes,  trousers  of  English  kerseymere  with  pleats  in 
front,  a  very  open  vest  showing  a  particularly  fine  shirt  and 


THE   MUSE    OF  THE  DEPARTMENT.  Ill 

the  black  brocade  waterfall  of  his  handsomest  cravat,  and  a 
very  thin,  very  short,  black  riding-coat. 

Monsieur  de  Clagny  and  Monsieur  Gravier  looked  at  each 
other,  feeling  rather  silly  as  they  beheld  the  two  Parisians  in 
the  carriage,  while  they,  like  two  simpletons,  were  left  stand- 
ing at  the  foot  of  the  steps.  Monsieur  de  La  Baudraye,  who 
stood  at  the  top  waving  his  little  hand  in  a  little  farewell  to 
the  doctor,  could  not  forbear  from  smiling  as  he  heard  Mon- 
sieur de  Clagny  say  to  Monsieur  Gravier — 

*'  You  should  have  escorted  them  on  horseback." 

At  this  juncture  Gatien,  riding  Monsieur  de  La  Baudraye's 
quiet  little  mare,  came  out  of  the  side-road  from  the  stables 
and  joined  the  party  in  the  chaise. 

'•'Ah,  good!"  said  the  receiver-general,  "the  boy  has 
mounted  guard." 

"What  a  bore!"  cried  Dinah  as  she  saw  Gatien.  "In 
thirteen  years — for  I  have  been  married  nearly  thirteen  years 
— I  have  never  had  three  hours'  liberty." 

"Married,  madame  ?  "  said  the  journalist  with  a  smile. 
"You  remind  me  of  a  saying  of  Michaud's — he  was  so  witty  ! 
He  was  setting  out  for  the  Holy  Land,  and  his  friends  were 
remonstrating  with  him,  urging  his  age,  and  the  perils  of  such 
an  expedition.  'And  then,'  said  one,  'you  are  married.' 
'  Married  I  '  said  he,  '  so  little  married.'  " 

Even  the  rigid  Madame  Piedefer  could  not  repress  a  smile. 

"  I  should  not  be  surprised  to  see  Monsieur  de  Clagny 
mounted  on  my  pony  to  complete  the  escort,"  said  Dinah. 

"  Well,  if  the  public  prosecutor  does  not  pursue  us,  you 
can  jret  rid  of  this  little  fellow  at  Sancerre.  Bianchon  must, 
of  course,  have  left  something  behind  on  his  table — the  notes 
for  the  first  lecture  of  his  course — and  you  can  ask  Gatien  to 
go  back  to  Anzy  to  fetch  it." 

This  simple  little  plot  put  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  into 
high  spirits.  From  the  road  between  Anzy  to  Sancerre  a 
glorious  landscape  frequently  comes  into  view,  of  the  noble 


112  THE   MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT. 

Stretches  of  the  Loire  looking  like  a  lake,  and  it  was  got  over 
very  pleasantly,  for  Dinah  was  happy  in  finding  herself  well 
understood.  Love  was  discussed  in  theory,  a  subject  allowing 
lovers  in  secret  to  take  the  measure,  as  it  were,  of  each  other's 
heart.  The  journalist  took  a  tone  of  refined  corruption  to 
prove  that  love  obeys  no  law,  that  the  character  of  the  lovers 
gives  infinite  variety  to  its  incidents,  that  the  circumstances 
of  social  life  add  to  the  multiplicity  of  its  manifestations,  that 
in  love  all  is  possible  and  true,  and  that  any  given  woman, 
after  resisting  every  temptation  and  the  seductions  of  the  most 
passionate  lover,  may  be  carried  off  her  feet  in  the  course  of 
a  few  hours  by  a  fancy,  an  internal  whirlwind  of  which  God 
alone  would  ever  know  the  secret  ! 

"Why,"  said  he,  "  is  not  that  the  key  to  all  the  adventures 
we  have  talked  over  these  three  days  past  ?  " 

For  these  three  days,  indeed,  Dinah's  lively  imagination 
had  been  full  of  the  most  insidious  romances,  and  the  con- 
versation of  the  two  Parisians  had  affected  the  woman  as  the 
most  mischievous  reading  might  have  done.  Lousteau  watched 
the  effects  of  this  clever  manoeuvre  to  seize  the  moment  when 
his  prey,  whose  readiness  to  be  caught  was  hidden  under  the 
abstraction  caused  by  fatal  irresolution,  should  be  rendered 
quite  dizzy. 

Dinah  wished  to  show  La  Baudraye  to  her  two  visitors,  and 
the  farce  was  duly  played  out  of  remembering  the  papers  left 
by  Bianchon  in  his  rooms  at  Anzy.  Gatien  flew  off  at  a  gallop 
to  obey  his  sovereign  ;  Madame  Piedefer  went  to  do  some 
shopping  in  Sancerre  ;  and  Dinah  went  on  to  Cosne  alone 
with  the  two  friends.  Lousteau  took  his  seat  by  the  lady, 
Bianchon  riding  backward.  The  two  friends  talked  affection- 
ately and  with  deep  compassion  for  the  fate  of  this  choice 
nature  so  ill  understood  and  in  the  midst  of  such  vulgar  sur- 
roundings. Bianchon  served  Lousteau  well  by  making  fun  of 
the  public  prosecutor,  of  Monsieur  Gravier,  and  of  Gatien ; 
there  was  a  tone  of  such  genuine  contempt  in  his  remarks 


THE  MUSE    OF  THE  DEPARTMENT.  US 

that  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  dared  not  take  the  part  of  her 
adorers. 

"  I  perfectly  understand  the  position  you  have  maintained," 
said  the  doctor  as  they  crossed  the  Loire.  "You  were  in- 
accessible excepting  to  that  brain-love  which  often  leads  to 
heart-love  ;  and  not  one  of  those  men,  it  is  very  certain,  is 
capable  of  disguising  what,  at  an  early  stage  of  life,  is  dis- 
gusting to  the  senses  in  the  eyes  of  a  refined  woman.  To  you, 
now,  love  is  indispensable," 

"Indispensable!"  cried  Dinah,  looking  curiously  at  the 
doctor.     "  Do  you  mean  that  you  prescribe  love  to  me  ?  " 

"  If  you  go  on  living  as  you  live  now,  in  three  years  you 
will  be  hideous,"  replied  Bianchon  in  a  dictatorial  tone. 

"  Monsieur  !  "  said  Madame  de  La  Baudraye,  almost  fright- 
ened. 

"  Forgive  my  friend,"  said  Lousteau,  half  jestingly.  "  He 
is  always  the  medical  man,  and  to  him  love  is  merely  a  ques- 
tion of  hygiene.  But  he  is  quite  disinterested — it  is  for  your 
sake  only  that  he  speaks — as  is  evident,  since  he  is  starting  in 
an  hour " 

At  Cosne  a  little  crowd  gathered  round  the  old  repainted 
chaise,  with  the  arms  on  the  panels  granted  by  Louis  XIV.  to 
the  new  La  Baudraye.  Gules,  a  pair  of  scales  or ;  on  a  chief 
azure  (color  on  color)  three  cross-crosslets  argent.  For  sup- 
porters two  greyhounds  argent,  collared  azure,  chained  or. 
The  ironical  motto:  Deo  sic  paiet  fides  et  hominibtis,  had  been 
inflicted  on  the  converted  Calvinist  by  Monsieur  d'Hozier  the 
satirical. 

"Let  us  get  out;  they  will  come  and  find  us,"  said  the 
baroness,  desiring  her  coachman  to  keep  watch. 

Dinah  took  Bianchon's  arm,  and  the  doctor  set  off  by  the 
banks  of  the  Loire  at  so  rapid  a  pace  that  the  journalist  had 
to  linger  behind.  The  physician  had  explained  by  a  single 
wink  that  he  meant  to  do  Lousteau  a  good  turn. 

"You  have  been  attracted  by  Etienne,"  said  Bianchon  to 
8 


114  THE  MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT. 

Dinah;  ''he  has  appealed  strongly  to  your  imagination;  last 
night  we  were  talking  about  you.  He  loves  you.  But  he  is 
frivolous,  and  difficult  to  hold ;  his  poverty  compels  him  to 
live  in  Paris,  while  everything  condemns  you  to  live  at  San- 
cerre.  Take  a  lofty  view  of  life.  Make  Lousteau  your  friend  ; 
do  not  ask  too  much  of  him  ;  he  will  come  three  times  a  year 
to  spend  a  few  days  with  you,  and  you  will  owe  to  him  your 
beauty,  happiness,  and  fortune.  Monsieur  de  La  Baudraye 
may  live  to  be  a  hundred  ;  but  he  might  die  in  a  few  days  if 
he  should  leave  off  the  flannel  winding-sheet  in  which  he 
swathes  himself.  So  run  no  risks,  be  prudent  both  of  you. 
Say  not  a  word — I  have  read  your  heart." 

Madame  de  La  Baudraye  was  defenseless  under  this  serried 
attack,  and  in  the  presence  of  a  man  who  spoke  at  once  as  a 
doctor,  a  confessor,  and  confidential  friend. 

"  Indeed  !  "  said  she.  "  Can  you  suppose  that  any  woman 
would  care  to  compete  with  a  journalist's  mistresses?  Mon- 
sieur Lousteau  strikes  me  as  agreeable  and  witty ;  but  he  is 
blase,  etc.,  etc. " 

Dinah  had  turned  back,  and  was  obliged  to  check  the  flow 
of  words  by  which  she  tried  to  disguise  her  intentions ;  for 
Etienne,  who  seemed  to  be  studying  progress  in  Cosne,  was 
coming  to  meet  them. 

"Believe  me,"  said  Bianchon,  "what  he  wants  is  to  be 
truly  loved  ;  and  if  he  alters  his  course  of  life,  it  will  be  to  the 
benefit  of  his  talent." 

Dinah's  coachman  hurried  up  breathlessly  to  say  that  the 
diligence  had  come  in,  and  they  walked  on  quickly,  Madame 
de  La  Baudraye  between  the  two  men. 

"  Farewell,  my  children  !  "  said  Bianchon,  before  they  got 
into  the  town,  "  you  have  my  blessing  !  " 

He  released  Madame  de  La  Baudraye's  hand  from  his  arm, 
and  allowed  Lousteau  to  draw  it  into  his,  with  a  tender  look, 
as  he  pressed  it  to  his  heart.  What  a  difference  tc  Dinah  ! 
Etienne's  arm  thrilled  her  deeply.    Bianchon's  had  not  stirred 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT.  115 

her  in  the  least.     She  and  the  journalist  exchanged  one  of 
those  glowing  looks  that  are  more  than  an  avowal. 

"Only  provincial  women  wear  lawn  gowns  in  these  days," 
thought  Lousteau  to  himself,  "the  only  stuff  which  shows 
every  crease.  This  woman,  who  has  chosen  me  for  her  lover, 
will  make  a  fuss  over  her  frock  !  If  she  had  but  put  on  a 
foulard  skirt,  I  should  be  happy.  What  is  the  meaning  of 
these  difficulties ?  " 

While  Lousteau  was  wondering  whether  Dinah  had  put  on 
a  lawn  gown  on  purpose  to  protect  herself  by  an  insuperable 
obstacle,  Bianchon,  with  the  help  of  the  coachman,  was  seeing 
his  luggage  piled  on  the  diligence.  Finally,  he  came  to  take 
leave  of  Dinah,  who  was  excessively  friendly  with  him. 

"Go  home,  Madame  la  Baronne,  leave  me  here — Gatien 
will  be  coming,"  he  added  in  an  undertone.  "It  is  getting 
late,"  said  he  aloud.      "Adieu!" 

"  Adieu — great  man  !  "  cried  Lousteau,  shaking  hands  with 
Bianchon. 

When  the  journalist  and  Madame  de  La  Baudraye,  side  by 
side  in  the  rickety  old  chaise,  had  recrossed  the  Loire,  they 
both  were  unready  to  speak.  In  these  circumstances,  the  first 
words  that  break  the  pregnant  silence  are  full  of  deep  and 
terrible  meaning. 

"  Do  you  know  how  much  I  love  you?  "  said  the  journalist 
point  blank. 

Victory  might  gratify  Lousteau,  but  defeat  could  cause  him 
no  grief.  This  indifference  was  the  secret  of  his  audacity. 
He  took  Madame  de  La  Baudraye's  hand  as  he  spoke  these 
decisive  words,  and  pressed  it  in  both  his ;  but  Dinah  gently 
released  it. 

"  Yes,  I  am  as  good  as  an  actress  or  a  grisetie,''  she  said  in 
a  voice  that  trembled,  though  she  spoke  lightly.  "  But  can 
you  suppose  that  a  woman  who,  in  spite  of  her  absurdities,  has 
some  intelligence,  will  have  reserved  the  best  treasures  of  her 
heart   for  a  man  who  will  regard   her  merely  as  a  transient 


116  THE  MUSE    OF  THE  DEPARTMENT. 

pleasure  ?     I  am  not  surprised  to  hear  from  your  lips  the  words 
which  so  many  men  have  said  to  me — but " 

The  coachman  turned  round. 

"  Here  comes  Monsieur  Gatien,"  said  he. 

"  I  love  you,  I  will  have  you,  you  shall  be  mine,  for  I  have 
never  felt  for  any  woman  the  passion  I  have  for  you!  "  said 
Lousteau  in  her  ear. 

"  In  spite  of  my  will,  perhaps?  "  said  she,  with  a  smile. 

'*  At  least  you  must  seem  to  have  been  assaulted  to  save  my 
honor,"  said  the  Parisian,  to  whom  the  fatal  immaculateness 
of  clean  India  muslin  suggested  a  ridiculous  notion. 

Before  Gatien  had  reached  the  end  of  the  bridge,  the  outra- 
geous journalist  had  crumpled  up  Madame  de  La  Baudraye's 
lawn  dress  to  such  effect  that  she  was  absolutely  not  present- 
able. 

"  Oh,  monsieur  !  "  she  exclaimed  in  dignified  reproof. 

"You  defied  me,'  said  the  Parisian. 

But  Gatien  now  rode  up  with  the  vehemence  of  a  duped 
lover.  To  regain  a  little  of  Madame  de  La  Baudraye's  esteem, 
Lousteau  did  his  best  to  hide  the  tumbled  dress  from  Gatien's 
eyes  by  leaning  out  of  the  chaise  to  speak  to  him  from  Dinah's 
side. 

"Go  back  to  our  inn,"  said  he,  "there  is  still  time ;  the 
diligence  does  not  start  for  half  an  hour.  The  papers  are  on 
the  table  of  the  room  Bianchon  was  in ;  he  wants  them  most 
particularly,  for  he  will  be  completely  lost  without  his  notes 
for  the  lecture." 

"  Pray  go,  Gatien,"  said  Dinah  to  her  young  adorer,  with 
an  imperious  glance.  And  the  boy  thus  commanded  turned 
his  horse  and  was  ofiF  with  a  loose  rein. 

"  Go  quickly  to  La  Baudraye,"  cried  Lousteau  to  the  coach- 
man.     "Madame   is   not   well Your   mother   only  will 

know  the  secret  of  my  trick,"  added  he,  taking  his  seat  by 
Dinah. 

"You  call  such  infamous  conduct  a  trick?  "  cried  Madame 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT.  117 

de  La  Baudraye,  swallowing  down  a  few  tears  that  dried  up 
with  the  fire  of  outraged  pride. 

She  leaned  back  in  the  corner  of  the  chaise,  crossed  her 
arms,  and  gazed  out  at  the  Loire  and  the  landscape,  at  any- 
thing rather  than  at  Lousteau.  The  journalist  put  on  his 
most  ingratiating  tone,  and  talked  till  they  reached  La  Bau- 
draye, where  Dinah  fled  indoors,  trying  not  to  be  seen  by  any 
one.  In  her  agitation  she  threw  herself  on  a  sofa  and  burst 
into  tears. 

"If  I  am  an  object  of  horror  to  you,  of  aversion  or  scorn, 
I  will  go,"  said  Lousteau,  who  had  followed  her.  And  he 
threw  himself  at  her  feet. 

It  was  at  this  crisis  that  Madame  Piedefer  came  in,  saying 
to  her  daughter — 

"  What  is  the  matter?     What  has  happened  ?  " 
"  Give  your  daughter  another  dress  at  once,"  said  the  au- 
dacious Parisian  in  the  prim  old  lady's  ear. 

Plearing  the  mad  gallop  of  Gatien's  horse,  Madame  de  La 
Baudraye  fled  to  her  bedroom,  followed  by  her  mother. 

"  There  are  no  papers  at  the  inn,"  said  Gatien  to  Lousteau, 
who  went  out  to  meet  him. 

"And  you  found  none  at  the  Chateau  d'Anzy  either?" 
replied  Lousteau. 

"You  have  been  making  a  fool  of  me,"  said  Gatien,  in  a 
cold  set  voice. 

"  Quite  so,"  replied  Lousteau.  "  Madame  de  La  Baudraye 
was  greatly  annoyed  by  your  choosing  to  follow  her  without 
being  invited.  Believe  me,  to  bore  a  woman  is  a  bad  way  of 
courting  her.  Dinah  has  played  you  a  trick,  and  you  have 
given  her  a  laugh ;  it  is  more  than  any  of  you  has  done  in 
these  thirteen  years  past.  You  owe  that  success  to  Bianchon, 
for  your  cousin  was  the  author  of  the  farce  of  '  The  Manu- 
script.' Will  the  horse  get  over  it?"  asked  Lousteau  with  a 
laugh,  while  Gatien  was  wondering  whether  to  be  angry  or 
not. 


118  THE  MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT. 

"  The  horse  !  "  said  Gatien. 

At  this  moment  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  came  in,  dressed 
in  a  velvet  gown,  and  accompanied  by  her  mother,  who  shot 
angry  flashes  at  Lousteau.  It  would  have  been  too  rash  for 
Dinah  to  seem  cold  or  severe  to  Lousteau  in  Gaticn's  presence  ; 
and  Eticnne,  taking  advantage  of  this,  offered  his  arm  to  the 
supposed  Lucretia ;  however,  she  declined  it. 

"  Do  you  mean  to  cast  off  a  man  who  has  vowed  to  live  for 
you?"  said  he,  walking  close  beside  her.  "I  shall  stop  at 
Sancerre  and  go  home  to-morrow." 

"Are  you  coming,  mamma?  "  said  Madame  deLa  Baudraye 
to  Madame  Piedefer,  thus  avoiding  a  reply  to  the  direct  chal- 
lenge by  which  Lousteau  was  forcing  her  to  a  decision. 

Lousteau  handed  the  mother  into  the  chaise,  he  helped 
Madame  de  La  Baudraye  by  gently  taking  her  arm,  and  he 
and  Gatien  took  the  front  seat,  leaving  the  saddle  horse  at 
La  Baudraye. 

"You  have  changed  your  gown,"  said  Gatien,  blunder- 
ingly, to  Dinah. 

"Madame  la  Baronne  was  chilled  by  the  cool  air  off"  the 
river,"  replied  Lousteau.  "  Bianchon  advised  her  to  put  on 
a  warm  dress." 

Dinah  turned  as  red  as  a  poppy,  and  Madame  Piedefer 
assumed  a  stern  expression. 

"Poor  Bianchon!  he  is  on  the  road  to  Paris.  A  noble 
soul  !  "  said  Lousteau. 

"Oh  yes  !  "  cried  Madame  de  La  Baudraye,  "he  is  high- 
minded,  full  of  delicate  feeling " 

"We  were  in  such  good  spirits  when  we  set  out,"  said 
Lousteau;  "now  you  are  overdone,  and  you  speak  to  me  so 
bitterly — why  ?  Are  you  not  accustomed  to  being  told  how 
handsome  and  how  clever  you  are  ?  For  my  part,  I  say  boldly, 
before  Gatien,  I  give  up  Paris ;  I  mean  to  stay  at  Sancerre 
and  swell  the  number  of  your  gallant  slaves.  I  feel  so  young 
again  in  my  native  district ;  I  have  quite  forgotten  Paris  and 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT.  119 

all  its  wickedness,  and  its  bores,  and  its  wearisome  pleasures. 
Yes,  my  life  seems  in  a  way  purified." 

Dinah  allowed  Lousteau  to  talk  without  even  looking  at 
him ;  but  at  last  there  was  a  moment  when  this  serpent's 
rhodomontadc  was  really  so  inspired  by  the  effort  he  made 
to  affect  passion  in  phrases  and  ideas  of  which  the  meaning, 
though  hidden  from  Gatien,  found  a  loud  response  in  Dinah's 
heart,  that  she  raised  her  eyes  to  his.  This  look  seemed  to 
crown  Lousteau's  joy ;  his  wit  flowed  more  freely,  and  at  last 
he  made  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  laugh.  When,  under  cir- 
cumstances which  so  seriously  compromise  her  pride,  a  woman 
has  been  made  to  laugh,  she  is  finally  committed. 

As  they  drove  in  by  the  spacious  graveled  forecourt,  with 
its  lawn  in  the  middle,  and  the  large  vases  filled  with  flowers 
which  so  well  set  off  the  facade  of  Anzy,  the  journalist  was 
saying : 

"  When  women  love,  they  forgive  everything,  even  our 
crimes  ;  when  they  do  not  love,  they  cannot  forgive  anything 
— not  even  our  virtues.  Do  you  forgive  me,"  he  added  in 
Madame  de  La  Baudraye's  ear,  and  pressing  her  arm  to  his 
heart  with  tender  emphasis.  And  Dinah  could  not  help  smil- 
ing. 

All  through  dinner  and  for  the  rest  of  the  evening  Etienne 
was  in  the  most  delightful  spirits,  inexhaustibly  cheerful ;  but 
while  thus  giving  vent  to  his  intoxication,  he  now  and  then 
fell  into  the  dreamy  abstraction  of  a  man  who  seems  rapt  in. 
his  own  happiness. 

After  coffee  had  been  served,  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  and 
her  mother  left  the  men  to  wander  about  the  gardens.  Mon- 
sieur Gravier  then  remarked  to  Monsieur  de  Clagny : 

"Did  you  observe  that  Madame  de  La  Baudraye,  after 
going  out  in  a  lawn  gown  came  home  in  a  velvet  one  ?  " 

"As  she  got  into  the  carriage  at  Cosne,  the  lawn  dress 
caught  on  a  brass  nail  and  was  torn  all  the  way  down,"  re- 
plied Lousteau. 


120  THE  MUSE    OF  THE   DEPARTMENT. 

"Oh  !  "  exclaimed  Gatien,  stricken  to  the  heart  by  hear- 
ing two  such  different  explanations. 

The  journalist,  who  understood,  took  Gatien  by  the  arm 
and  pressed  it  as  a  hint  to  him  to  be  silent.  A  few  minutes 
later  Etienne  left  Dinah's  three  adorers  and  took  possession 
of  little  La  Baudraye.  Then  Gatien  was  cross-questioned  as 
to  the  events  of  the  day.  Monsicr  Gravier  and  Monsieur  de 
Clagny  were  dismayed  to  hear  that  on  the  return  from  Cosne 
Lousteau  had  been  alone  with  Dinah,  and  even  more  so  on 
hearing  the  two  versions  explaining  the  lady's  change  of  dress. 
And  the  three  discomfited  gentlemen  were  in  a  very  awkward 
position  for  the  rest  of  the  evening. 

Next  day  each,  on  various  business,  was  obliged  to  leave 
Anzy ;  Dinah  remained  with  her  mother,  Lousteau,  and  her 
husband.  The  annoyance  vented  by  the  three  victims  gave 
rise  to  an  organized  rebellion  in  Sancerre.  The  surrender  of 
the  Muse  of  Le  Berry,  of  the  Nivernais,  and  of  Morvan  was 
the  cause  of  a  perfect  hue  and  cry  of  slander,  evil  report,  and 
various  guesses  in  which  the  story  of  the  muslin  gown  held  a 
prominent  place.  No  dress  Dinah  had  ever  worn  had  been 
so  much  commented  on,  or  was  half  as  interesting  to  the  girls, 
who  could  not  conceive  what  the  connection  might  be,  that 
made  the  married  women  laugh,  between  love  and  an  India 
muslin  gown. 

Madame  the  Presidentc  Boirouge,  furious  at  her  son's  dis- 
comfiture, forgot  the  praise  she  had  lavished  on  the  poem  of 
*'  Paquita,"  and  fulminated  terrific  condemnation  on  the 
woman  who  could  publish  such  a  disgraceful  work. 

*'  The  wretched  woman  commits  every  crime  she  writes 
about,"  said  she.  "  Perhaps  she  will  come  to  the  same  end 
as  her  heroine  !  " 

Dinah's  fate  among  the  good  folk  of  Sancerre  was  like  that 
of  Marshal  Soult  in  the  opposition  newspapers  :  as  long  as  he 
is  minister  he  lost  the  battle  of  Toulouse  ;  whenever  he  is  out 
of  the    Government    he  won    it  !     While   she   was  virtuous. 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT.  121 

Dinah  was  a  match  for  Camille  de  Maupin,  a  rival  of  the 
most  famous  women  ;  but  as  soon  as  she  was  happy,  she  was 
an  unhappy  creature. 

Monsieur  de  Clagny  was  her  valiant  champion  ;  he  went 
several  times  to  the  Castle  of  Anzy  to  acquire  the  right  to 
contradict  the  rumors  current  as  to  the  woman  he  still  faith- 
fully adored,  even  in  her  fall ;  and  he  maintained  that  she 
and  Lousteau  were  engaged  together  on  some  great  work. 
But  the  lawyer  was  laughed  to  scorn. 

The  month  of  October  was  lovely ;  autumn  is  the  finest 
season  in  the  valley  of  the  Loire ;  but  in  1836  it  was  unusually 
glorious.  Nature  seemed  to  aid  and  abet  Dinah,  who,  as 
Bianchon  had  predicted,  gradually  developed  a  heart-felt  pas- 
sion. In  one  month  she  was  an  altered  woman.  She  was 
surprised  to  find  in  herself  so  many  inert  and  dormant  quali- 
ties, hitherto  in  abeyance.  To  her  Lousteau  seemed  an  angel; 
for  heart-love,  the  crowning  need  of  a  great  nature,  had  made 
a  new  woman  of  her.  Dinah  was  alive  !  She  had  found  an 
outlet  for  her  powers,  she  saw  undreamed-of  vistas  in  the 
future — in  short,  she  was  happy,  happy  without  alarms  or  hin- 
drances. The  vast  castle,  the  gardens,  the  park,  the  forest, 
favored  love  ! 

Lousteau  found  in  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  an  artlessness, 
nay,  if  you  will,  an  innocence  of  mind  which  made  her  very 
original ;  there  was  much  more  of  the  unexpected  and  winning 
in  her  than  in  a  girl.  Lousteau  was  quite  alive  to  a  form  of 
flattery  which  in  most  women  is  assumed,  but  which  in  Dinah 
was  genuine  ;  she  really  learned  from  him  the  ways  of  love ; 
he  really  was  the  first  to  reign  in  her  heart.  And,  indeed,  he 
took  the  trouble  to  be  exceedingly  amiable. 

Men,  like  women,  have  a  stock  in  hand  of  recitatives,  of  can- 
tabile,  of  nocturnes,  arias  and  refrains — shall  we  say  of  recipes, 
although  we  speak  of  love — which  each  one  believes  to  be 
exclusively  his  own.  Men  who  have  reached  Loustcau's  age 
try  to  distribute  the  "  movements"  of  this  repertoire  through 


122  THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT 

the  whole  opera  of  a  passion.  Lousteau,  regarding  this  ad- 
venture with  Dinah  as  a  mere  temporary  connection,  was 
eager  to  stamp  himself  on  her  memory  in  indelible  lines ;  and 
during  that  beautiful  October  he  was  prodigal  of  his  most  en- 
trancing melodies  and  most  elaborate  barcarolles.  In  fact, 
he  exhausted  every  resource  of  the  stage  management  of  love, 
to  use  an  expression  borrowed  from  the  theatrical  dictionary, 
and  admirably  descriptive  of  his  manoeuvres. 

"If  that  woman  ever  forgets  me!  "  he  would  sometimes 
say  to  himself  as  they  returned  together  from  a  long  walk  in 
the  woods,  "  I  will  owe  her  no  grudge — she  will  have  found 
something  better." 

When  two  beings  have  sung  together  all  the  ducts  of  that 
enchanting  score,  and  still  love  each  other,  it  may  be  said 
that  they  love  truly. 

Lousteau,  however,  had  not  time  to  repeat  himself,  for  he 
was  to  leave  Anzy  in  the  early  days  of  November.  His  paper 
required  his  presence  in  Paris.  Before  breakfast,  on  the  day 
before  he  was  to  leave,  the  journalist  and  Dinah  saw  the  master 
of  the  house  come  in  with  an  artist  from  Nevers,  who  restored 
carvings  of  all  kinds. 

"What  are  you  going  to  do  ?  "  asked  Lousteau.  "What 
is  to  be  done  to  the  castle  ?  " 

"This  is  what  I  am  going  to  do,"  said  the  little  man, 
leading  Lousteau,  the  local  artist,  and  Dinah  out  on  the  ter- 
race. 

He  pointed  out,  on  the  front  of  the  building,  a  shield  sup- 
ported by  two  sirens,  not  unlike  that  which  may  be  seen  on 
the  arcade,  now  closed,  through  which  there  used  to  be  a  pas- 
sage from  the  Quai  des  Tuileries  to  the  courtyard  of  the  old 
Louvre,  and  over  which  the  words  may  still  be  seen',  ^'■Biblio- 
theque  du  Cabinet  du  Roi.'^  (Library  of  tlie  King's  Cabinet.) 
This  shield  bore  the  arms  of  the  noble  House  of  Uxelles, 
namely :  or  and  gules  party  per  fess,  with  two  lions  or,  dexter 
and  sinister  as  supporters.     Above,  a  knight's  helm,  mantled 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT.  123 

of  the  tincture  of  the  shield,  and  surmountea  by  a  ducal 
coronet.     Motto,  Cy paroist !     A  proud  and  sonorous  device, 

"  I  want  to  put  my  own  coat-of-arms  in  the  place  of  that  of 
the  Uxelles ;  and  as  they  are  repeated  six  times  on  the  two 
fronts  and  the  two  wings,  it  is  not  a  trifling  affair." 

"Your  arms,  so  new,  and  since  1830  !  "  exclaimed  Dinah. 

*'  Have  I  not  created  an  entail  ?  " 

"I  could  understand  it  if  you  had  children,"  said  the 
journalist. 

"Oh  !  "  said  the  old  man,  "  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  is 
still  young;  there  is  no  time  lost." 

This  illusion  made  Lousteau  smile ;  he  did  not  understand 
Monsieur  de  La  Baudraye. 

"There,  Didine  !  "  said  he  in  Dinah's  ear,  "what  a  waste 
of  remorse  !  " 

Dinah  begged  him  to  give  her  one  day  more,  and  the  lovers 
parted  after  the  manner  of  certain  theatres,  which  give  ten 
last  performances  of  a  piece  that  is  paying.  And  how  many 
promises  they  made !  How  many  solemn  pledges  did  not 
Dinah  exact  and  the  unblushing  journalist  give  her. 

Dinah,  with  the  superiority  of  the  Superior  Woman,  ac- 
companied Lousteau,  in  the  face  of  all  the  world,  as  far  as 
Cosne,  with  her  mother  and  little  La  Baudraye.  When,  ten 
days  later,  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  saw  in  her  drawing-room 
at  La  Baudraye  Monsieur  de  Clagny,  Gatien,  and  Gravier, 
she  found  an  opportunity  of  saying  to  each  in  turn  : 

"  I  owe  it  to  Monsieur  Lousteau  that  I  discovered  that  I  had 
not  been  loved  for  my  own  sake." 

And  what  noble  speeches  she  uttered,  on  man,,  on  the  nature 
of  his  feelings,  on  the  end  of  his  base  passions,  and  so  forth. 
Of  Dinah's  three  worshipers.  Monsieur  de  Clagny  only  said 
to  her — "  I  love  you,  come  what  may  " — and  Dinah  accepted 
him  as  her  confidant,  lavished  on  him  all  the  marks  of  friend- 
ship which  women  can  devise  for  the  Gurths  who  are  ready 
thus  to  wear  the  collar  of  gilded  slavery. 


124  THE  MUSE    OF  THE  DEPARTMENT. 

In  Paris  once  more,  Lousteau  had,  in  a  few  weeks,  lost  the 
impression  of  the  happy  time  he  had  spent  at  the  Anzy  castle. 
This  is  why :  Lousteau  lived  by  his  pen. 

In  this  century,  especially  since  the  triumph  of  the  bour- 
geoisie— the  commonplace,  money-saving  citizen — who  takes 
good  care  not  to  imitate  Francis  I.  or  Louis  XIV.* — to  live 
by  the  pen  is  a  form  of  penal  servitude  to  which  a  galley-slave 
would  prefer  death.  To  live  by  the  pen  means  to  create — to 
create  to-day,  and  to-morrow,  and  incessantly — or  to  seem  to 
create ;  and  the  imitation  costs  as  dear  as  the  reality.  So, 
beside  his  daily  contribution  to  a  newspaper,  which  was  like 
the  stone  of  Sisyphus,  and  which  came  every  Monday,  crashing 
down  on  to  the  feather  of  his  pen.  Etienne  worked  for  thiee 
or  four  literary  magazines.  Still,  do  not  be  alarmed  ;  he  put 
no  artistic  conscientiousness  into  his  work.  This  man  of 
Sancerre  had  a  facility,  a  carelessness,  if  you  call  it  so,  which 
ranked  him  with  those  writers  who  are  mere  scriveners,  literary 
hacks.  In  Paris,  in  our  day,  hack-work  cuts  a  man  off  from 
every  pretension  to  a  literary  position.  When  he  can  do  no 
more,  or  no  longer  cares  for  advancement,  the  man  who  can 
write  becomes  a  journalist  and  a  hack. 

The  life  he  leads  is  not  unpleasant.  Blue-stockings,  begin- 
ners in  every  walk  of  life,  actresses  at  the  outset  or  at  the  close 
of  a  career,  publishers  and  authors,  all  make  much  of  these 
writers  of  the  ready  pen.  Lousteau,  a  thorough  man-about- 
town,  lived  at  scarcely  any  expense  beyond  paying  his  rent. 
He  had  boxes  at  all  the  theatres ;  the  sale  of  the  books  he 
reviewed  or  left  unreviewed  paid  for  his  gloves  ;  and  he  would 
say  to  those  authors  who  published  at  their  own  expense :  "I 
have  your  book  always  in  my  hands  !  "  He  took  toll  from 
vanity  in  the  form  of  drawings  or  pictures.  Every  day  had 
its  engagements  to  dinner,  every  night  its  theatre,  every  morn- 
ing was  filled  up  with  callers,  visits,  and  lounging.  His  serial 
in  the  paper,  two  novels  a  year  for  weekly  magazines,  and  his 
*  The  rei?n  of  each  of  these  kings  was  ruinous  to  France. 


THE  MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT.  125 

miscellaneous  article  were  the  tax  he  paid  for  this  easy-going 
life.  And  yet,  to  reach  this  position,  Etienne  had  struggled 
for  ten  years. 

At  the  present  time,  known  to  the  literary  world,  liked  for 
the  good  or  the  mischief  he  did  with  equally  facile  good- 
humor,  he  let  himself  float  with  the  stream,  never  caring  for 
the  future.  He  ruled  a  little  set  of  new-comers,  he  had  friend- 
ships, or  rather,  habits  of  fifteen  years'  standing,  and  men 
with  whom  he  supped,  and  dined,  and  indulged  his  wit.  He 
earned  from  seven  to  eight  hundred  francs  a  month,  a  sum 
which  he  found  quite  insufficient  for  the  prodigality  peculiar 
to  the  impecunious.  Indeed,  Lousteau  found  himself  now 
just  as  hard  up  as  when,  on  first  appearing  in  Paris,  he  had 
said  to  himself:  "  If  I  had  but  five  hundred  francs  a  month,  I 
should  be  rich  !  " 

The  cause  of  this  phenomenon  was  as  follows :  Lousteau 
lived  in  the  Rue  des  Martyrs  in  pretty  first-floor  rooms  with  a 
garden,  and  splendidly  furnished.  When  he  settled  there  in 
1833  he  had  come  to  an  agreement  with  an  upholsterer  that 
kept  his  pocket-money  low  for  a  long  time.  These  rooms 
were  let  for  twelve  hundred  francs.  The  months  of  January, 
April,  July,  and  October  were,  as  he  phrased  it,  his  indigent 
months.  The  rent  and  the  porter's  account  cleaned  him  out. 
Lousteau  took  no  fewer  hackney-cabs,  spent  a  hundred  francs 
in  breakfasts,  all  the  same,  smoked  thirty  francs'  worth  of 
cigars,  and  could  never  refuse  the  mistress  of  a  day  a  dinner 
or  a  new  dress.  He  thus  dipped  so  deeply  into  the  fluctuating 
earnings  of  the  following  months  that  he  could  no  more  find 
a  hundred  francs  on  his  chimney-piece  now,  when  he  was 
making  seven  or  eight  hundred  francs  a  month,  than  he  could 
in  1822.  when  he  was  hardly  getting  two  hundred. 

Tired,  sometimes,  by  the  incessant  vicissitudes  of  a  literary 
life,  and  as  much  bored  by  amusement  as  a  courtesan,  Lous- 
teau would  get  out  of  the  tideway  and  sit  on  the  bank,  and  say 
to  one  and  another  of  his  intimate  allies — Nathan  or  Bixiou, 


126  THE  MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT. 

as  they  sat  smoking  in  his  scrap  of  garden,  looking  out  on  an 
evergreen  lawn  as  big  as  a  dining-table — 

"What  will  be  the  end  of  us?  White  hairs  are  giving  us 
respectful  hints  !  " 

"Lord!  we  shall  marry  when  we  choose  to  give  as  much 
thought  to  the  matter  as  we  give  to  a  drama  or  a  novel,"  said 
Nathan. 

"  And  Florine?  "  retorted  Bixiou. 

"Oh,  we  all  have  a  Florine,"  said  Etienne,  flinging  away 
the  end  of  his  cigar  and  thinking  of  Madame  Schontz.* 

Madame  Schontz  was  a  pretty  enough  woman  to  put  a  very 
high  price  on  the  interest  on  her  beauty,  while  reserving  abso- 
lute ownership  for  Lousteau,  the  man  of  her  heart.  Like  all 
those  women  who  got  the  name  in  Paris  of  Lorettes,  from  the 
church  of  Notre-Dame  de  Lorette  round  about  which  they 
dwell,  she  lived  in  the  Rue  Flechier,  a  stone's  throw  from 
Lousteau.  This  lady  took  a  pride  and  delight  in  teasing  her 
friends  by  boasting  of  having  a  Wit  for  her  lover. 

These  details  of  Lousteau's  life  and  fortune  are  indispensable, 
for  this  penury  and  this  bohemian  existence  of  a  man  to  whom 
Parisian  luxury  had  become  a  necessity  were  fated  to  have  a 
cruel  influence  on  Dinah's  life.  Those  to  whom  the  bohemia 
of  Paris  is  familiar  will  now  understand  how  it  was  that,  by 
the  end  of  a  fortnight,  the  journalist,  up  to  his  ears  in  the 
literary  environment,  could  laugh  about  his  baroness  with  his 
friends  and  even  with  Madame  Schontz.  To  such  readers  as 
regard  such  doings  as  utterly  mean,  it  is  almost  useless  to  make 
excuses  which  they  will  not  accept. 

"What  did  you  do  at  Sancerre  ?  "  asked  Bixiou  the  first 
time  he  met  Lousteau. 

"  I  did  good  service  to  three  worthy  provincials — a  receiver- 
general  of  taxes,  a  little  cousin  of  his,  and  a  public  prosecutor, 
who  for  ten  years  had  been  dancing  round  and  round  one  of 
the   hundred   'Tenth   Muses'   who  adorn   the   department," 

*  See  "  Beatrix." 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT.  127 

said  he.  "  But  they  had  no  more  dared  to  touch  her  than  we 
touch  a  decorated  cream  at  dessert  till  some  strong-minded 
person  has  made  a  hole  in  it." 

"  Poor  boy  !  "  said  Bixiou.  "  I  said  you  had  gone  to  San- 
cerre  to  turn  Pegasus  out  to  grass." 

"  Your  joke  is  as  stupid  as  my  Muse  is  handsome,"  retorted 
Lousteau.     "  Ask  Bianchon,  my  dear  fellow." 

"A  Muse  and  Poet!  A  horacEopathic  cure  then  !"  said 
Bixiou. 

On  the  tenth  day  Lousteau  received  a  letter  with  the  San- 
cerre  post-mark. 

"  Good  !  very  good  !  "  said  Lousteau. 

**  'Beloved  friend,  idol  of  my  heart  and  soul '  twenty 

pages  of  it !  all  at  one  sitting,  and  dated  midnight !  She 
writes  when  she  finds  herself  alone.  Poor  woman  !  Ah,  ha ! 
And  a  postscript — 

"  '  I  dare  not  ask  you  to  write  to  me  as  I  write,  every  day; 
still,  I  hope  to  have  a  few  lines  from  my  dear  one  every  week, 
to  relieve  my  mind.'  What  a  pity  to  burn  it  all !  it  is  really 
well  written,"  said  Lousteau  to  himself,  as  he  threw  the  ten 
sheets  of  paper  into  the  fire  after  having  read  them.  "  That 
woman  was  born  to  reel  off  copy  !  " 

Lousteau  was  not  much  afraid  of  Madame  Schontz,  who 
really  loved  him  for  himself;  but  he  had  supplanted  a  friend 
in  the  heart  of  a  marquise.  This  marquise,  a  lady  nowise  coy, 
sometimes  dropped  in  unexpectedly  at  his  rooms  in  the  even- 
ing, arriving  veiled  in  a  hackney-coach  ;  and  she,  as  a  literary 
woman,  allowed  herself  to  hunt  through  all  his  drawers. 

A  week  later,  Lousteau,  who  hardly  remembered  Dinah, 
was  startled  by  another  budget  from  Sancerre — eight  leaves, 
sixteen  pages!  He  heard  a  woman's  step;  he  thought  it  an- 
nounced a  search  from  the  marquise,  and  tossed  these  raptur- 
ous and  entrancing  proofs  of  affection  into  the  fire — unread  ! 

"A  woman's  letter!"  exclaimed  Madame  Schontz  as  she 
came  in.      "  The  paper,  the  wax,  are  scented " 


128  THE  MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT. 

"Here  you  are,  sir,"  said  a  porter  from  the  coach  office, 
setting  down  two  huge  hampers  in  the  anteroom.  "  Carriage 
paid.     Please  to  sign  my  book." 

"  Carriage  paid  !  "  cried  Madame  Schontz.  "  It  must  have 
come  from  Sanccrre." 

"Yes,  madame,"  said  the  porter. 

"Your  Tenth  Muse  is  a  remarkably  intelligent  woman," 
said  the  courtesan,  opening  one  of  the  hampers,  while  Lous- 
teau  was  writing  his  name.  "  I  like  a  Muse  who  understands 
housekeeping,  and  who  can  make  game-pies  as  well  as  blots. 
And,  oh  !  what  beautiful  flowers  !  "  she  went  on,  opening  the 
second  hamper.  "Why,  you  could  get  none  finer  in  Paris! 
And  here,  and  here  !  A  hare,  partridges,  half  a  roebuck  ! 
We  will  ask  your  friends  and  have  a  famous  dinner,  for  Athalie 
has  a  special  talent  for  dressing  venison." 

Lousteau  wrote  to  Dinah ;  but  instead  of  writing  from  the 
heart,  he  was  clever.  The  letter  was  all  the  more  insidious ; 
it  was  like  one  of  Mirabeau's  letters  to  Sophie.  The  style  of 
a  true  lover  is  transparent.  It  is  a  clear  stream  which  allows 
the  bottom  of  the  heart  to  be  seen  between  two  banks,  bright 
with  the  trifles  of  existence,  and  covered  with  the  flowers  of  the 
soul  that  blossom  afresh  every  day,  full  of  intoxicating  beauty 
— but  only  for  two  beings.  As  soon  as  a  love  letter  has  any 
charm  for  a  third  reader,  it  is  beyond  doubt  the  product  of 
the  head,  not  of  the  heart.  But  a  woman  will  always  be 
beguiled  ;  she  always  believes  herself  to  be  the  determining 
cause  of  this  flow  of  wit. 

By  the  end  of  December  Lousteau  had  ceased  to  read 
Dinah's  letters ;  they  lay  in  a  heap  in  a  drawer  of  his  chest 
that  was  never  locked,  under  his  shirts,  which  they  scented. 

Then  one  of  those  chances  came  to  Lousteau  which  such 
bohemians  ought  to  clutch  by  every  hair.  In  the  middle  of 
December,  Madame  Schontz,  who  took  a  real  interest  in 
Etienne,  sent  to  beg  him  to  call  on  her  one  morning  on 
business. 


THE   MUSE    OF  THE  DEPARTMENT.  129 

*'My  dear  fellow,  you  have  a  chance  of  marrying." 

"  I  can  marry  very  often,  happily,  my  dear." 

"When  I  say  marrying,  I  mean  marrying  well.  You  have 
no  prejudices :  I  need  not  mince  matters.  This  is  the  posi- 
tion :  A  young  lady  has  got  into  trouble  ;  her  mother  knows 
nothing  of  even  a  kiss.  Her  father  is  an  honest  notary,  a  man 
of  honor;  he  has  been  wise  enough  to  keep  it  dark.  He 
wants  to  get  his  daughter  married  within  a  fortnight,  and  he 
will  give  her  a  fortune  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  francs 
— for  he  has  three  other  children  ;  but — and  it  is  not  a  bad 
idea — he  will  add  a  hundred  thousand  francs,  under  the  rose, 
hand  to  hand,  to  cover  the  damages.  They  are  an  old  family 
of  Paris  citizens.  Rue  des  Lombards " 

"  Well,  then,  why  does  not  the  lover  marry  her?" 

"Dead." 

"  What  a  romance  !  Such  things  are  nowhere  to  be  heard 
of  but  in  the  Rue  des  Lombards " 

"  But  do  not  take  it  into  your  head  that  a  jealous  brother 
murdered  the  seducer.  The  young  man  died  in  the  most 
commonplace  way  of  a  pleurisy  caught  as  he  came  out  of  the 
theatre.  A  head-clerk  and  penniless,  the  man  entrapped  the 
daughter  in  order  to  marry  into  the  business.  A  judgment 
from  heaven,  I  call  it !  " 

"Where  did  you  hear  the  story?" 

"From  Malaga;  the  notary  is  her  milord.'" 

"  What,  Cardot,  the  son  of  that  little  old  man  in  hair- 
powder,  Florentine's  first  friend?" 

"Just  so.  Malaga,  whose  'fancy'  is  a  little  tomtit  of  a 
fiddler  of  eighteen,  cannot  in  conscience  make  such  a  boy 
marry  the  girl.  Beside,  she  has  no  cause  to  do  him  an 
ill  turn.  Indeed,  Monsieur  Cardot  wants  a  man  of  thirty 
at  least.  Our  notary,  I  feel  sure,  will  be  proud  to  have 
a  famous  man  for  his  son-in-law.  So  just  feci  yourself  all 
over.  You  will  pay  your  debts,  you  will  have  twelve  thousand 
francs  a  year,  and  be  a  father  without  any  trouble  on  your 
9 


130  THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT. 

part ;  what  do  you  say  to  that  to  the  good  ?  And,  after  all, 
you  only  marry  a  very  consolable  widow.  There  is  an  income 
of  fifty  thousand  francs  in  the  house,  and  the  value  of  the 
connection,  so  in  due  time  you  may  look  forward  to  not  less 
than  fifteen  thousand  francs  a  year  more  for  your  share,  and 
you  will  enter  a  family  holding  a  fine  political  position ; 
Cardot  is  the  brother-in-law  of  old  Camusot,  the  deputy  who 
lived  so  long  with  Fanny  Beaupre." 

"Yes,"  said  Lousteau,  "old  Camusot  married  little  Daddy 
Cardot's  eldest  daughter;  they  had  high  old  times  together  !  " 

"  Well !  "  Madame  Schontz  went  on,  "and  Madame  Car- 
dot,  the  notary's  wife,  was  a  Chiffreville — manufacturers  of 
chemical  products,  the  aristocracy  of  these  days  !  Potash,  I 
tell  you  !  Still,  this  is  the  unpleasant  side  of  the  matter.  You 
will  have  a  terrible  mother-in-law,  a  woman  capable  of  killing 

her   daughter  if  she   knew !     This    Cardot  woman    is  a 

bigot ;  she  has  lips  like  two  faded,  narrow  pink  ribbons. 

"A  man  of  the  town  like  you  would  never  pass  muster  with 
that  woman,  who,  in  her  well-meaning  way,  will  spy  out  your 
bachelor  life  and  know  every  fact  of  the  past.  However, 
Cardot  says  he  means  to  exert  his  paternal  authority.  The 
poor  man  will  be  obliged  to  do  the  civil  to  his  wife  for  some 
days ;  a  woman  made  of  wood,  my  dear  fellow  ;  Malaga,  who 
has  seen  her,  calls  her  a  penitential  scrubber.  Cardot  is  a 
man  of  forty ;  he  will  be  mayor  of  his  district,  and  perhaps  be 
elected  deputy.  He  is  prepared  to  give  in  lieu  of  the  hundred 
thousand  francs  a  nice  little  house  in  the  Rue  Saint-Lazare, 
with  a  forecourt  and  a  garden,  which  cost  him  no  more  than 
sixty  thousand  at  the  time  of  the  July  overthrow;  he  would 
sell,  and  that  would  be  an  opportunity  for  you  to  go  and  come 
about  the  house,  to  see  the  daughter,  and  be  civil  to  the  mother. 
And  it  would  give  you  a  look  of  property  in  Madame  Cardot's 
eyes.  You  would  be  housed  like  a  prince  in  that  little  man- 
sion. Then,  by  Camusot's  interest,  you  may  get  an  appoint- 
ment as  librarian  to  some  public  office  where  there  is  no  library. 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT.  131 

Well,  and  then  if  you  invest  your  money  in  backing  up  a  news- 
paper, you  will  get  ten  thousand  francs  a  year  on  it,  you 
can  earn  six,  your  librarianship  will  bring  you  in  four.  Can 
you  do  better  for  yourself? 

"  If  you  were  to  marry  a  lamb  without  spot,  it  might  be  a 
light  woman  by  the  end  of  two  years.  What  is  the  damage? — 
an  anticipated  dividend  !     It  is  quite  the  fashion. 

"  Take  my  word  for  it,  you  can  do  no  better  than  come  to 
dine  with  Malaga  to-morrow.  You  will  meet  your  father-in- 
law  ;  he  will  know  the  secret  has  been  let  out — by  Malaga, 
with  whom  he  cannot  be  angry — and  then  you  are  master  of 
the  situation.  As  to  your  wife  !  Why,  her  misconduct  leaves 
you  as  free  as  a  bachelor " 

"Your  language  is  as  blunt  as  a  cannon-ball." 

"  I  love  you  for  your  own  sake,  that  is  all.  And  I  can 
reason.  Well  !  why  do  you  stand  there  like  a  wax  image  of 
Abd-el-Kader?  There  is  nothing  to  meditate  over.  Marriage 
is  heads  or  tails — well,  you  have  tossed  heads  up." 

"  You  shall  have  my  reply  to-morrow,"  said  Lousteau. 

"  I  would  sooner  have  it  at  once  ■  Malaga  will  write  you  up 
to-night." 

''Well,  then,  yes." 

Lousteau  spent  the  evening  in  writing  a  long  letter  to  the 
marquise,  giving  her  the  reasons  which  compelled  him  to 
marry  :  his  constant  poverty,  the  torpor  of  his  imagination,  his 
white  hairs,  his  moral  and  physical  exhaustion — in  short,  four 
pages  of  arguments.  "As  to  Dinah,  I  will  send  her  a  circular 
announcing  the  marriage,"  said  he  to  himself.  "As  Bixiou 
says,  I  have  not  my  match  for  knowing  how  to  dock  the  tail 
of  a  passion." 

Lousteau,  who  at  first  had  been  on  some  ceremony  with 
himself,  by  next  day  had  come  to  the  point  of  dreading  lest 
the  marriage  should  not  come  off.  He  was  pressingly  civil  to 
the  notary. 

"  I  knew  monsieur  your  father,"  said  he,  "  at  Florentine's, 


132  THE  MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT. 

SO  I  may  well  know  you  here,  at  Mademoiselle  Turquet's. 
Like  father,  like  son.  A  very  good  fellow  and  a  philosopher 
was  little  Daddy  Cardot — excuse  me,  we  always  called  him 
that.  At  that  time,  Florine,  Florentine,  Tullia,  Coralie,  and 
Mariette  were  the  five  fingers  of  your  hand,  so  to  speak — it  is 
fifteen  years  ago.  My  follies,  as  you  may  suppose,  are  a  thing 
of  the  past.  In  those  days  it  was  pleasure  that  ran  away  with 
me  ;  now  I  am  ambitious ;  but,  in  our  day,  to  get  on  at  all  a 
man  must  be  free  from  debt,  have  a  good  income,  a  wife,  and 
a  family.  If  I  pay  taxes  enough  to  qualify  me,  I  may  be  a 
deputy  yet,  like  any  other  man." 

Maitre  Cardot  appreciated  this  profession  of  faith.  Lous- 
teau  had  laid  himself  out  to  please,  and  the  notary  liked  him, 
feeling  himself  more  at  his  ease,  as  may  be  easily  imagined, 
with  a  man  who  had  known  his  father's  secrets  than  he  would 
have  been  with  another.  On  the  following  day  Lousteau  was 
introduced  to  the  Cardot  family  as  the  purchaser  of  the  house 
in  the  Rue  Saint-Lazare,  and  three  days  later  Etienne  dined 
there. 

Cardot  lived  in  an  old  house  near  the  Place  du  Chatelet. 
In  this  house  everything  was  "good."  Economy  covered 
every  scrap  of  gilding  with  gr^en  gauze  ;  all  the  furniture  wore 
holland  covers.  Though  it  was  impossible  to  feel  a  shade  of 
uneasiness  as  to  the  wealth  of  the  inhabitants,  at  the  end  of 
half  an  hour  no  one  could  suppress  a  yawn.  Boredom  perched 
in  every  nook  ;  the  curtains  hung  dolefully  ;  the  dining-room 
was  like  Harpagon's.  Even  if  Lousteau  had  not  known  all 
about  Malaga,  he  could  have  guessed  that  the  notary's  real 
life  was  spent  elsewhere. 

The  journalist  saw  a  tall,  fair  girl  with  blue  eyes,  at  once 
shy  and  languishing.  The  elder  brother  took  a  fancy  to  him  ; 
he  was  the  fourth  clerk  in  the  office,  but  strongly  attracted  by 
the  snares  of  literary  fame,  though  destined  to  succeed  his 
father.  The  younger  sister  was  twelve  years  old.  Lousteau, 
assuming  a  little  Jesuitical  air,  played   the    Monarchist   and 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT.  133 

churchman  for  the  benefit  of  the  mother,  was  quiet,  smooth, 
deliberate,  and  complimentary. 

Within  three  weeks  of  their  introduction,  at  his  fourth  din- 
ner there,  Felicie  Cardot,  who  had  been  watching  Lousteau 
out  of  the  corner  of  her  eye,  carried  him  a  cup  of  coffee  where 
he  stood  in  the  window  recess,  and  said  in  a  low  voice,  with 
tears  in  her  eyes — 

*'  I  will  devote  my  whole  life,  monsieur,  to  thanking  you 
for  your  sacrifice  in  favor  of  a  poor  girl " 

Lousteau  was  touched  ;  there  was  so  much  expression  in  her 
look,  her  accent,  her  attitude.  "She  would  make  a  good 
man  happy,"  thought  he,  pressing  her  hand  in  reply. 

Madame  Cardot  looked  upon  her  son-in-law  as  a  man  with  a 
future  before  him  ;  but,  above  all  the  fine  qualities  she  ascribed 
to  him,  she  was  most  delighted  by  his  high  tone  of  morals. 
Etienne,  prompted  by  the  wily  notary,  had  pledged  his  word 
that  he  had  no  natural  children,  no  tie  that  could  endanger 
the  happiness  of  her  dear  Felicie. 

"You  may  perhaps  think  I  go  rather  too  far,"  said  the 
bigot  to  the  journalist  ;  "  but  in  giving  such  a  jewel  as  my 
Felicie  to  any  man,  one  must  think  of  the  future.  I  am  not 
one  of  those  mothers  who  want  to  be  rid  of  their  daughters. 
Monsieur  Cardot  hurries  matters  on,  urges  forward  his  daugh- 
ter's marriage  ;  he  wishes  it  over.  This  is  the  only  point  on 
which  we  differ.  Though  with  a  man  like  you,  monsieur,  a 
literary  man  whose  youth  has  been  preserved  by  hard  work 
from  the  moral  shipwreck  now  so  prevalent,  we  may  feel  quite 
safe;  still,  you  would  be  the  first  to  laugh  at  me  if  I  looked 
for  a  husband  for  my  daughter  with  my  eyes  shut.  I  know 
you  are  not  an  innocent,  and  I  should  be  very  sorry  for  my 
Felicie  if  you  were  "  (this  was  said  in  a  whisper)  ;   "  but  if 

you  had  any  liaisoti For   instance,  monsieur,  you  have 

heard  of  Madame  Roguin,  the  wife  of  a  notary  who,  unhappily 
for  our  faculty,  was  sadly  notorious.  Madame  Roquin  has, 
ever  since  1820,  been  kept  by  a  banker " 


134  THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT. 

"Yes,  du  Tillet,"  replied  Etienne  ;  but  he  bit  his  tongue 
as  he  recollected  how  rash  it  was  to  confess  to  an  acquaintance 
with  du  Tillet. 

"  Yes.  Well,  monsieur,  if  you  were  a  mother,  would  you 
not  quake  at  the  thought  that  Madame  du  Tillet's  fate  might 
be  your  child's?  At  her  age,  and  nee  de  Grandville  !  To 
have  as  a  rival  a  woman  of  fifty  and  more.  Sooner  would  I 
see  my  daughter  dead  than  give  her  to  a  man  who  had  such  a 
connection  with  a  married  woman.  A  grisette,  an  actress, 
you  take  her  and  leave  her.  There  is  no  danger,  in  my 
opinion,  from  women  of  that  stamp ;  love  is  their  trade,  they 
care  for  no  one,  one  down  and  another  to  come  on  !  But  a 
woman  who  has  sinned  against  duty  must  hug  her  sin  ;  her 
only  excuse  is  constancy,  if  such  a  crime  can  ever  have  an 
excuse.  At  least,  that  is  the  view  I  hold  of  a  respectable 
woman's  fall,  and  that  is  what  makes  it  so  terrible " 

Instead  of  looking  for  the  meaning  of  these  speeches, 
Etienne  made  a  jest  of  them  at  Malaga's,*  whither  he  went 
with  his  father-in-law-elect ;  for  the  notary  and  the  journalist 
were  the  best  of  friends. 

Lousteau  had  already  given  himself  the  airs  of  a  person  of 
importance  ;  his  life  at  last  was  to  have  a  purpose  ;  he  was  in 
luck's  way,  and  in  a  few  days  would  be  the  owner  of  a  delight- 
ful little  house  in  the  Rue  Saint-Lazare ;  he  was  going  to  be 
married  to  a  charming  woman,  he  would  have  about  twenty 
thousand  francs  a  year,  and  could  give  the  reins  to  his  ambi- 
tion ;  the  young  lady  loved  him,  and  he  would  be  connected 
with  several  respectable  families.  In  short,  he  was  in  full  sail 
on  the  blue  waters  of  hope. 

Madame  Cardot  had  expressed  a  wish  to  see  the  cuts  for 

*'Gil  Bias,"  one  of  the  illustrated  volumes  which  the  French 

publishers  were  at  that  time  bringing  out,  and  Lousteau  had 

taken  the  first  numbers  for  the  lady's  inspection.    The  lawyer's 

*  See  "  The  Imaginary  Mistress." 


THE  MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT.  135 

wife  had  a  scheme  of  her  own,  she  had  borrowed  the  book 
merely  to  return  it ;  she  wanted  an  excuse  for  walking  in  on 
her  future  son-in-law  quite  unexpectedly.  The  sight  of  those 
bachelor  rooms,  which  her  husband  had  described  as  charm- 
ing, would  tell  her  more,  she  thought,  as  to  Lousteau's  habits 
of  life  than  any  information  she  could  pick  up.  Her  sister- 
in-law,  Madame  Camusot,  who  knew  nothing  of  the  fateful 
secret,  was  terrified  at  such  a  marriage  for  her  niece.  Mon- 
sieur Camusot,  a  councilor  of  the  supreme  court,  old  Camu- 
sot's  son  by  his  first  marriage,  had  given  his  stepmother,  who 
was  Cardot's  sister,  a  far  from  flattering  account  of  the  jour- 
nalist. 

Lousteau,  clever  as  he  was,  did  not  think  it  strange  that  the 
wife  of  a  rich  notary  should  wish  to  inspect  a  volume  costing 
only  fifteen  francs  before  deciding  on  the  purchase.  Your 
clever  man  never  condescends  to  study  the  middle-class,  which 
escapes  his  ken  by  this  want  of  attention  ;  and  while  he  is 
making  game  of  them,  they  are  at  leisure  to  throttle  him. 

So  one  day  early  in  January,  1S37,  Madame  Cardot  and 
her  daughter  took  a  hackney-coach  and  went  to  the  Rue  des 
Martyrs  to  return  the  parts  of  "Gil  Bias"  to  Felicie's  be- 
trothed, both  delighted  at  the  thought  of  seeing  Lousteau's 
rooms.  These  domiciliary  visitations  are  not  unusual  in  the 
old  citizen  class.  The  porter  at  the  front  gate  was  not  in  ; 
but  his  daughter,  on  being  informed  by  the  worthy  lady  that 
she  was  in  the  presence  of  Monsieur  Lousteau's  future  mother- 
in-law  and  bride,  handed  over  the  key  of  the  apartments — all 
the  more  readily  because  Madame  Cardot  placed  a  gold-piece 
in  her  hand. 

It  was  by  this  time  about  noon,  the  hour  at  which  the  jour- 
nalist would  return  from  breakfasting  at  the  Cafe  Anglais.  As 
he  crossed  the  open  space  between  the  church  of  Notre- Dame 
de  Lorette  and  the  Rue  des  Martyrs,  Lousteau  happened  to 
look  at  a  hired  coach  that  was  toiling  up  the  Rue  de  Faubourg- 
Montmartre,  and  he  fancied  it  was  a  dream  when  he  saw  the 


136  THE  MUSE    OF  THE  DEPARTMENT. 

face  of  Dinah  !     He  stood  frozen  to  the  spot  when,  on  reach- 
ing his  house,  he  beheld  his  Didine  at  the  coach  door. 

"  What  has  brought  you  here?  "  he  inquired.  He  adopted 
the  familiar  tu  (thou).  The  formality  of  vous  (you)  was  out 
of  the  question  to  a  woman  he  must  get  rid  of. 

"Why,  my  love,"  cried  she,  "  have  you  not  read  my 
letters?" 

"  Certainly  I  have,"  said  Lousteau. 

''Well,  then?" 

''Well,  then?" 

"You  are  a  father,"  replied  the  country  lady. 

"  Faugh  !  "  cried  he,  disregarding  the  barbarity  of  such  an 
exclamation.  "  Well,"  thought  he  to  himself,  "  she  must  be 
prepared  for  the  blow." 

He  signed  to  the  coachman  to  wait,  gave  his  hand  to  Ma- 
dame de  La  Baudraye,  and  left  the  man  with  the  chaise  full  of 
trunks,  vowing  that  he  would  promptly  send  away,  as  he  said 
to  himself,  the  woman  and  her  luggage,  back  to  the  place 
whence  she  had  come. 

"Monsieur,  monsieur,"  called  out  little  Pamela. 

The  child  had  some  sense,  and  felt  that  three  women  must 
not  be  allowed  to  meet  in  a  bachelor's  rooms. 

"Well,  well !  "  said  Lousteau,  dragging  Dinah  along. 

Pamela  concluded  that  the  lady  must  be  some  relation  ;  how- 
ever, she  added — 

"The  key  is  in  the  door;  your  mother-in-law  is  there." 

In  his  agitation,  while  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  was  pouring 
out  a  flood  of  words,  Elienne  understood  the  child  to  S7,y, 
"  Mother  is  there,"  the  only  circumstance  that  suggested  itself 
as  possible,  and  he  went  in. 

Felicie  and  her  mother,  who  were  by  this  time  in  the  bed- 
room, crept  into  a  corner  on  seeing  Etienne  enter  with  a 
woman. 

"At  last,  Etienne,  my  dearest,  I  am  yours  for  life  !  "  cried 
Dinah,  throwing  her  arms  round  his  neck,  and  clasping  him 


THE  MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT.  137 

closely,  while  he  took  the  key  from  the  outside  of  the  door. 
"Life  was  a  perpetual  anguish  to  me  in  that  house  at  Anzy. 
I  could  bear  it  no  longer ;  and  when  the  time  came  for  me  to 
proclaim  my  happiness — well,  I  had  not  the  courage.  Here  I 
am,  your  wife  with  your  child  !  And  you  have  not  written 
me;  you  have  left  me  two  months  without  a  line." 

"  But,  Dinah,  you  place  me  in  the  greatest  difficulty " 

"  Do  you  love  me?  " 

"  How  can  I  do  otherwise  than  love  you?  But  would  yon 
not  have  been  wiser  to  remain  at  Sancerre?  I  am  in  the  most 
abject  poverty,  and  I  fear  to  drag  you  into  it " 

"Your  misery  will  be  paradise  to  me,  I  only  ask  to  live 
here,  never  to  go  out " 

"  Good  God  !    that  is   all  very   fine    in    words,  but " 


Dinah  sat  down  and  melted  into  tears  as  she  heard  this  speech, 
roughly  spoken. 

Lousteau  could  not  resist  this  distress.  He  clasped  the 
baroness  in  his  arms  and  kissed  her. 

"Do  not  cry,  Didine  !  "  said  he;  and,  as  he  uttered  the 
words,  he  saw  in  the  mirror  the  figure  of  Madame  Cardot, 
looking  at  him  from  the  farther  end  of  the  rooms.  "  Come, 
Didine,  go  with  Pamela  and  get  your  trunks  unloaded,"  said 
he  in  her  ear.      "  Go  ;  do  not  cry  ;   we  will  be  happy  !  " 

He  led  her  to  the  door,  and  then  came  back  to  divert  the 
storm. 

"Monsieur,"  said  Madame  Cardot,  "I  congratulate  myself 
on  having  resolved  to  see  for  myself  the  home  of  the  man  who 
was  to   have  been    my  son-in-law.     If  my  daughter  were  to 
die  of  it,  she  should  never  be  the  wife  of  such  a  man  as  you. 
You  must   devote  yourself  to   making   your    Didine   happy, 


monsieur." 


And  the  virtuous  lady  walked  out,  followed  by  Felicie,  who 
was  crying  too,  for  she  had  become  accustomed  to  Etienne. 
The  dreadful  Madame  Cardot  got  into  her  hackney-coach 
again,  staring  insolently  at  the  hapless  Dinah,  in  whose  hearty 


1S8  THE  MUSE    OF  THE  DEPARTMENT. 

the  sting  still  rankled  of  "that  is  all  very  fine  in  words;" 
but  who,  nevertheless,  like  every  woman  in  love,  believed  in 
the  murmured  :  "  Do  not  cry,  Didine  !  " 

Lousteau,  who  was  not  lacking  in  the  sort  of  decision  which 
grows  out  of  the  vicissitudes  of  a  storm-tossed  life,  reflected 
thus: 

"  Didine  is  high-minded  ;  when  once  she  knows  of  my  pro- 
posed marriage,  she  will  sacrifice  herself  for  my  future  pros- 
pects, and  I  know  how  I  can  manage  to  let  her  know."  De- 
lighted at  having  hit  on  a  trick  of  which  the  success  seemed 
certain,  he  danced  round  to  a  familiar  tune — 

''  Larifla,  fia,  fla  !  And  Didine  once  out  of  the  way,"  he 
went  on,  talking  to  himself,  "  I  will  treat  Mammy  Cardot  to 
a  call  and  a  novelette :  I  have  seduced  her  Felicie  at  Saint- 
Eustache — Felicie,  guilty  through  passion,  bears  in  her  bosom 
the  pledge  of  our  affection — and  larifla,  fla,  fla  !  The  father 
cannot  give  me  the  lie,  fla,  fla — no,  nor  the  girl — larifla  / 
Ergo :  the  notary,  his  wife,  and  his  daughter  are  caught, 
nabbed " 

And,  to  her  great  amazement,  Dinah  discovered  Etienne 
performing  a  prohibited  dance. 

"Your  arrival  and  our  happiness  have  turned  my  head  with 
joy,"  said  he,  to  explain  this  crazy  mood. 

"And  I  had  fancied  you  had  ceased  to  love  me!"  ex- 
claimed the  poor  woman,  dropping  the  handbag  she  was  car- 
rying and  weeping  with  joy  as  she  sank  into  a  chair. 

"  Make  yourself  at  home,  my  darling,"  said  Etienne,  laugh- 
ing in  his  sleeve;  "I  must  write  two  lines  to  excuse  myself 
from  a  bachelor  party,  for  I  mean  to  devote  myself  to  you. 
Give  your  orders;  you  are  at  home." 

Etienne  wrote  to  Bixiou  : 

"  My  dear  Boy  : — My  baroness  has  dropped  into  my  arms, 
and  will  be  fatal  to  my  marriage  unless  we  perform  one  of  the 
most  familiar  stratagems  of  the  thousand  and  one  comedies  at 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT.  139 

the  Gymnase.  I  rely  on  you  to  come  here,  like  one  of 
Moliere's  old  men,  to  scold  your  nephew  Leandre  for  his  folly, 
while  the  Tenth  Muse  lies  hidden  in  my  bedroom ;  you  must 
work,  on  her  feelings ;  strike  hard,  be  brutal,  offensive.  I, 
you  understand,  shall  express  my  blind  devotion,  and  shall 
seem  to  be  deaf,  so  that  you  may  have  to  shout  at  me. 
"  Come,  if  you  can,  at  seven  o'clock. 

"Yours, 

''  E.  LOUSTEAU." 

Having  sent  this  letter  by  a  commissionaire  to  the  man  who, 
in  all  Paris,  most  delighted  in  such  practical  jokes — in  the 
slang  of  artists,  a  "  charge  " — Lousteau  made  a  great  show  of 
settling  the  Muse  of  Sancerre  in  his  apartments.  He  busied 
himself  in  arranging  the  baggage  she  had  brought,  and  in- 
formed her  as  to  the  persons  and  ways  of  the  house  with  such 
perfect  good  faith,  and  a  glee  which  overflowed  in  kind  words 
and  caresses,  that  Dinah  believed  herself  the  best-beloved 
woman  in  the  world.  These  rooms,  where  everything  bore 
the  stamp  of  fashion,  pleased  her  far  better  than  her  old 
manor-house. 

Pamela  Migeon,  the  intelligent  damsel  of  fourteen,  was 
questioned  by  the  journalist  as  to  whether  she  would  like  to  be 
waiting-maid  to  tlie  imposing  baroness.  Pamela,  perfectly 
enchanted,  entered  on  her  duties  at  once,  by  going  off  to 
order  dinner  from  a  restaurant  on  the  boulevard.  Dinah  was 
able  to  judge  of  the  extreme  poverty  that  lay  hidden  under 
the  purely  superficial  elegance  of  this  bachelor  home  when  she 
found  none  of  the  necessaries  of  life.  As  she  took  possession 
of  the  closets  and  drawers,  she  indulged  in  the  fondest  dreams  ; 
she  would  alter  Etienne's  habits,  she  would  make  him  home- 
keeping,  she  would  fill  his  cup  of  domestic  happiness. 

The  novelty  of  the  position  hid  its  disastrous  side ;  Dinah 
regarded  reciprocated  love  as  the  absolution  of  her  sin  ;  she 
did  not  yet  look  beyond  the  walls  of  these  rooms.     Pamela, 


140  THE  MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT. 

whose  wits  were  as  sharp  as  those  of  a  lorette,  went  straight  to 
Madame  Schontz  to  beg  the  loan  of  some  plate,  telling  her 
what  had  happened  to  Lousteau.  After  making  the  child 
welcome  to  all  she  had,  Madame  Schontz  went  off  to  her 
friend  Malaga,  that  Cardot  might  be  warned  of  the  catastrophe 
that  had  befallen  his  future  son-in-law. 

The  journalist,  not  in  the  least  uneasy  about  the  crisis  as 
affecting  his  marriage,  was  more  and  more  charming  to  the 
lady  from  the  provinces.  The  dinner  was  the  occasion  of  the 
delightful  child's-play  of  lovers  set  at  liberty,  and  happy  to 
be  free.  When  they  had  had  their  coffee,  and  Lousteau  was 
sitting  in  front  of  the  fire,  Dinah  on  his  knee,  Pamela,  ran  in 
with  a  scared  face. 

"  Here  is  Monsieur  Bixiou!  "    said  she. 

"  Go  into  the  bedroom,"  said  the  journalist  to  his  mistress; 
"  I  will  soon  get  rid  of  him.  He  is  one  of  my  most  intimate 
friends,  and  I  shall  have  to  explain  to  him  my  new  start  in 
life." 

"Oh,  ho!  dinner  for  two,  and  a  blue  velvet  bonnet!" 
cried  Bixiou.  "  I  am  off.  Ah  !  that  is  what  comes  of  marry- 
ing— one  must  go  through  some  partings.  How  rich  one  feels 
when  one  begins  to  move  one's  sticks,  eh?" 

"  Who  talks  of  marrying  ?  "  said  Lousteau. 

"What!  are  you  not  going  to  be  married,  then?"  cried 
Bixiou. 

"No!" 

"  No?  My  word,  what  next  ?  Are  you  making  a  fool  of 
yourself,  if  you  please?  What !  You,  who,  by  the  mercy  of 
heaven,  have  come  across  twenty  thousand  francs  a  year,  and 
a  house,  and  a  wife  connected  with  all  the  first  families  of  the 
better  middle-class — a  wife,  in  short,  out  of  the  Rue  des 
Lombards ' ' 

"  That  will  do,  Bixiou,  enough  ;  it  is  at  an  end.     Be  off!  " 

"Be  off?  I  have  a  friend's  privileges,  and  I  shall  take 
every  advantage  of  them.     What  has  come  over  you? " 


THE  MUSE    OF  THE  DEPARTMENT.  141 

"What  has  'come  over'  me  is  my  lady  from  Sancerre. 
She  is  a  mother,  and  we  are  going  to  live  together  happily  to 
the  end  of  our  days.  You  will  have  heard  it  to-morrow,  so 
you  may  as  well  be  told  it  now." 

"  Many  chimney-pots  are  falling  on  my  head,  as  Arnal  says. 
But  if  this  woman  really  loves  you,  my  dear  fellow,  she  will 
go  back  to  the  place  she  came  from.  Did  any  provincial 
woman  ever  yet  find  her  sea-legs  in  Paris  ?  She  will  wound  all 
your  vanities.  Have  you  forgotten  what  a  provincial  is? 
She  will  bore  you  as  much  when  she  is  happy  as  when  she  is 
sad  J  she  will  have  as  great  a  talent  for  escaping  grace  as  a 
Parisian  has  in  inventing  it. 

"  Lousteau,  listen  to  me.  That  a  passion  should  lead  you 
to  forget  to  some  extent  the  times  in  which  we  live  is  con- 
ceivable ;  but  I,  my  dear  fellow,  have  not  the  mythological 
bandage  over  my  eyes.  Well,  then,  consider  your  position. 
For  fifteen  years  you  have  been  tossing  in  the  literary  world ; 
you  are  no  longer  young,  you  have  padded  the  hoof  till  your 
soles  are  worn  through  !  Yes,  my  boy,  you  turn  your  socks 
under  like  a  street  urchin  to  hide  the  holes,  so  that  the  legs 
cover  the  heels !  In  short,  the  joke  is  too  stale.  Your  ex- 
cuses are  more  familiar,  more  generally  known,  than  a  patent 
medicine " 

"  I  may  say  to  you,  like  the  regent  to  Cardinal  Dubois: 
'  That  is  kicking  enough  !  '  "   said  Lousteau,  laughing. 

"  Oh,  venerable  young  man,"  replied  Bixiou,  "  the  iron 
has  touched  the  sore  to  the  quick.  You  are  worn  out,  aren't 
you  ?  Well,  then  ;  in  the  heyday  of  youth,  under  the  pres- 
sure of  penury,  what  have  you  done  ?  You  arc  not  in  the 
front  rank,  and  you  have  not  a  thousand  francs  of  your  own. 
That  is  the  sum-total  of  the  situation.  Can  you,  in  the  de- 
cline of  your  powers,  support  a  family  by  your  pen,  when  your 
wife,  if  she  is  an  honest  woman,  will  not  have  at  her  command 
the  resources  of  the  woman  of  the  streets,  who  can  extract  her 
thousand-franc  note  from  the  depths  where  milord  keeps  it 


142  THE  MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT. 

safe  ?  You  are  rushing  into  the  lowest  depths  of  the  social 
theatre. 

"And  this  is  only  the  financial  side.  Now,  consider  the 
political  position.  We  are  struggling  in  an  essentially  bour- 
geois age,  in  which  honor,  virtue,  high-mindedness,  talent, 
learning — genius,  in  short — is  summed  up  in  paying  your  way, 
owing  nobody  anything,  and  conducting  your  affairs  with 
judgment.  Be  steady,  be  respectable,  have  a  wife  and  chil- 
dren, pay  your  rent  and  taxes,  serve  in  the  National  Guard, 
and  be  on  the  same  pattern  as  all  the  men  of  your  company — 
then  you  may  indulge  in  the  loftiest  pretensions,  rise  to  the 
Ministry  !  And  you  have  the  best  chances  possible,  since  you 
are  no  Montmorency.  You  were  preparing  to  fulfill  all  the 
conditions  insisted  on  for  turning  out  a  political  personage, 
you  are  capable  of  every  mean  trick  that  is  necessary  in  ofllice, 
even  of  pretending  to  be  commonplace — you  would  have 
acted  it  to  the  life.  And  just  for  a  woman,  who  will  leave 
you  in  the  lurch — the  end  of  every  eternal  passion — in  three, 
five,  or  seven  years — after  exhausting  your  last  physical  and 
intellectual  powers,  you  turn  your  back  on  the  sacred  hearth, 
on  the  Rue  des  Lombards,  on  a  political  career,  on  thirty 
thousand  francs  per  annum,  on  respectability  and  respect. 
Ought  that  to  be  the  end  of  a  man  who  has  done  with  illu- 
sions ? 

"  If  you  had  kept  a  pot-boiling  for  some  actress  who  gave 
you  your  fun  for  it — well ;  that  is  what  you  may  call  a  cabinet 
matter.  But  to  live  with  another  man's  wife?  It  is  a  draft 
at  sight  on  disaster ;  it  is  bolting  the  bitter  pills  of  vice  with 
none  of  the  gilding." 

"  That  will  do.  One  word  answers  it  all  ;  I  love  Madame 
de  La  Baudraye,  and  prefer  her  to  every  fortune,  to  every 
position  the  world  can  offer.  I  may  have  been  carried  away 
by  a  gust  of  ambition,  but  everything  must  give  way  to  the 
joy  of  being  a  father." 

"Ah,  ha!  you  have  a  fancy  for  paternity?     But,  wretched 


THE  MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT.  143 

man,  we  are  the  fathers  only  of  our  legitimate  children.  What 
is  a  brat  that  does  not  bear  your  name  ?  The  last  chapter  of 
the  romance.  Your  child  will  be  taken  from  you  !  We  have 
seen  that  story  in  twenty  plays  these  ten  years  past. 

"  Society,  my  dear  boy,  will  drop  upon  you  sooner  or  later. 
Read  '  Adolphe '  once  more.  Dear  me  !  I  fancy  I  can  see 
you  when  you  and  she  are  used  to  each  other ; — I  see  you  de- 
jected, hang-dog,  bereft  of  position  and  fortune,  and  fighting 
like  the  shareholders  of  a  bogus  company  when  they  are  tricked 
by  a  director. 

"Your  director  is  happiness." 

"Say  no  more,  Bixiou." 

''But  I  have  only  just  begun,"  said  Bixiou.  "Listen,  my 
dear  boy.  Marriage  has  been  out  of  favor  for  some  time  past ; 
but,  apart  from  the  advantages  it  offers  in  being  the  only 
recognized  way  of  certifying  heredity,  as  it  affords  a  good- 
looking  young  man,  though  penniless,  the  opportunity  of  mak- 
ing his  fortune  in  two  months,  it  survives  in  spite  of  disadvan- 
tages. And  there  is  not  the  man  living  who  would  not  repent, 
sooner  or  later,  of  having,  by  his  own  fault,  lost  the  chance 
of  marrying  thirty  thousand  francs  a  year." 

"You  won't  understand  me,"  cried  Lousteau,  in  a  voice  of 
exasperation.      "  Go  away — she  is  there " 

"I  beg  your  pardon;  why  did  you  not  tell  me  sooner? 
You  are  of  age,  and  so  is  she,"  he  added  in  a  lower  voice, 
but  loud  enough  to  be  heard  by  Dinah.  "  She  will  make  you 
repent  bitterly  of  your  happiness  ! " 

"  If  it  is  a  folly,  I  intend  to  commit  it.     Farewell." 

"A  man  gone  overboard  !  "  cried  Bixiou. 

"  Devil  take  those  friends  who  think  they  have  a  right  to 
preach  to  you,"  said  Lousteau,  opening  the  door  of  the  bed- 
room, where  he  found  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  sunk  in  an 
armchair  and  dabbing  her  eyes  with  an  embroidered  handker- 
chief. 

"Oh,    why   did    I   come   here?"    sobbed   she.      "Good 


144  THE   MUSE    OF  THE  DEPARTMENT, 

heavens,  why  indeed?  Etienne,  I  am  not  so  provincial  as 
you  think  me.     You  are  making  a  fool  of  me." 

"Darling  angel,"  replied  Lousteau,  taking  Dinah  in  his 
arms,  lifting  her  from  her  chair,  and  dragging  her  half-dead 
into  the  drawing-room,  ''we  have  both  pledged  our  future,  it 
is  sacrifice  for  sacrifice.  While  I  was  loving  you  at  Sancerre, 
they  were  engaging  me  to  be  married  here,  but  I  refused. 
Oh  !  I  was  extremely  distressed " 

"I  am  going,"  cried  Dinah,  starting  wildly  to  her  feet  and 
turning  to  the  door. 

*' You  will  stay  here,  my  Didine.  All  is  at  an  end.  And 
is  this  fortune  so  lightly  earned  after  all  ?  Must  I  not  marry 
a  gawky,  tow-haired  creature,  with  a  red  nose,  the  daughter 
of  a  notary,  and  saddle  myself  with  a  stepmother  who  could 
easily  give  Madame  de  Piedefer  points  on  the  score  of  bigotry 
beside  the " 

Pamela  flew  in,  and  whispered  in  Lousteau's  ear — 

"  Madame  Schontz  !  " 

Lousteau  rose,  leaving  Dinah  on  the  sofa,  and  went  out. 

"It  is  all  over  with  you,  my  dear,"  said  the  woman. 
**  Cardot  does  not  mean  to  quarrel  with  his  wife  for  the  sake 
of  a  son-in-law.  The  lady  made  a  scene — something  like  a 
scene,  I  can  tell  you  !  So,  to  conclude,  the  head-clerk,  who 
was  the  late  head-clerk's  deputy  for  two  years,  agrees  to  take 
the  girl  with  the  business." 

"Mean  wretch!"  exclaimed  Lousteau.  "What!  in  two 
hours  he  has  made  up  his  mind?" 

"Bless  me,  that  is  simple  enough.  The  rascal,  who  knew 
all  the  dead  man's  little  secrets,  guessed  what  a  fix  his  master 
was  in  from  overhearing  a  few  words  of  the  squabble  with 
Madame  Cardot.  The  notary  relies  on  your  honor  and  good 
feeling,  for  the  affair  is  settled.  The  clerk,  whose  conduct 
has  been  admirable,  went  so  far  as  to  attend  mass  !  A  finished 
hypocrite,  I  say — just  suits  the  mamma.  You  and  Cardot 
will  still  be  friends.     He  is  to  be  a  director  in  an  immense 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT.  145 

financial  concern,  and  he  may  be  of  use  to  you.  So  you  have 
been  waked  from  a  sweet  dream." 

"  I  have  lost  a  fortune,  a  wife,  and " 

"And  a  mistress,"  said  Madame  Schontz,  smiling.  "Here 
you  are,  more  than  married  ;  you  will  be  insufferable,  you  will 
be  always  wanting  to  get  home,  there  will  be  nothing  loose 
about  you,  neither  your  clothes  nor  your  habits.  And,  after 
all,  my  Arthur  does  things  in  style.  I  will  be  faithful  to  him 
and  cut  Malaga's  acquaintance. 

"  Let  me  peep  at  her  through  the  door — your  Sancerre 
Muse,"  she  went  on.  "Is  there  no  finer  bird  than  that  to 
be  found  in  the  desert  ?  "  she  exclaimed.  "  You  are  cheated  ! 
She  is  dignified,  lean,  lachrymose;  she  only  needs  Lady  Dud- 
ley's turban  !  " 

"What  is  it  now?  "  asked  Madame  de  La  Baudraye,  who 
had  heard  the  rustle  of  a  silk  dress  and  the  murmur  of  a 
woman's  voice. 

"It  is,  my  darling,  that  we  are  now  indissolubly  united. 
I  have  just  had  an  answer  to  the  letter  you  saw  me  write, 
which  was  to  break  off  my  marriage " 

"  So  that  was  the  party  which  you  gave  up  ?  " 

"Yes." 

"'  Oh,  I  will  be  more  than  your  wife — I  am  your  slave,  I 
give  you  my  life,"  said  the  poor  deluded  creature.  "  I  did 
not  believe  I  could  love  you  more  than  I  did  !  Now  I  shall 
not  be  a  mere  incident,  but  your  whole  life?" 

"Yes,  my  beautiful,  my  generous  Uidine." 

"Swear  to  me,"  said  she,  "that  only  death  shall  divide 
us." 

Lousteau  was  ready  to  sweeten  his  vows  with  the  most 
fascinating  prettinesses.  And  this  was  why :  Between  the 
door  of  the  apartment  where  he  had  taken  the  lorette's  fare- 
well kiss  and  that  of  the  drawing-room,  wliere  the  Muse  was 
reclining,  bewildered  by  such  a  succession  of  shocks,  Lousteau 
had  remembered  little  de  I^a  Baudraye's  precarious  health,  his 
10 


146  THE  MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT. 

fine  fortune,  and  Bianchon's  remark  about  Dinah:  "  She  will 
be  a  rich  widow  !  "  and  he  said  to  himself,  '•  I  would  a  hun- 
dred times  rather  have  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  for  a  wife  than 
Felicie!  " 

His  plan  of  action  was  quickly  decided  on  ;  he  determined 
to  play  the  farce  of  passion  once  more,  and  to  perfection. 

His  mean  self-interest  and  his  false  vehemence  of  passion 
had  disastrous  results.  Madame  de  La  Baudraye,  when  she 
set  out  from  Sancerre  for  Paris,  had  intended  to  live  in  rooms 
of  her  own  quite  near  to  Lousteau  ;  but  the  proofs  of  devo- 
tion her  lover  had  shown  her  by  giving  up  such  brilliant  pros- 
pects, and  yet  more  the  perfect  happiness  of  the  first  days  of 
their  illicit  union,  kept  her  from  mentioning  such  a  parting. 
The  second  day  was  to  be — and  indeed  was — a  high  festival, 
in  which  such  a  suggestion  proposed  to  "her  angel"  would 
have  been  a  discordant  note. 

Lousteau,  on  his  part,  anxious  to  make  Dinah  feel  herself 
dependent  on  him,  kept  her  in  a  state  of  constant  intoxication 
by  incessant  amusement.  These  circumstances  hindered  two 
persons  so  clever  as  these  were  from  avoiding  the  slough  into 
which  they  fell — that  of  a  life  in  common,  a  piece  of  folly  of 
which,  unfortunately,  many  instances  may  be  seen  in  Paris  in 
literary  circles. 

And  thus  was  the  whole  programme  played  out  of  a  provin- 
cial amour,  so  satirically  described  by  Lousteau  to  Madame  de 
La  Baudraye — a  fact  which  neither  he  nor  she  remembered. 
Passion  is  born  a  deaf-mute. 

This  winter  in  Paris  was  to  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  all 
that  the  month  of  October  had  been  at  Sancerre.  Etienne, 
to  initiate  "  his  wife  "  into  Paris  life,  varied  this  honeymoon 
by  evenings  at  the  play,  where  Dinah  would  only  go  to  the 
stage  box.  At  first  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  preserved  some 
remnants  of  her  countrified  modesty;  she  was  afraid  of  being 
seen  ;  she  hid  her  happiness.     She  would  say — 


THE  MUSE    OF   'I HE   DEPARTMENT.  147 

"Monsieur  de  Clagny  or  Monsieur  Gravier  may  have 
followed  me  to  Paris."  She  was  afraid  of  Sancerre  even  in 
Paris. 

Lousteau,  who  was  excessively  vain,  educated  Dinah,  took 
her  to  the  best  dressmakers,  and  pointed  out  to  her  the  most 
fashionable  women,  advising  her  to  take  them  as  models  for 
imitation.  And  Madame  de  La  Baudraye's  provincial  appear- 
ance was  soon  a  thing  of  the  past.  Lousteau,  when  his 
friends  met  him,  was  congratulated  on  his  conquest. 

All  through  that  season  Etienne  wrote  little  and  got  very 
much  into  debt,  though  Daiah,  who  was  proud,  bought  all 
her  clothes  out  of  her  savings,  and  fancied  she  had  not  been 
the  smallest  expense  to  her  beloved.  By  the  end  of  three 
months  Dinah  was  acclimatized  :  she  had  reveled  in  the  music 
at  the  Italian  opera;  she  knew  the  pieces  "on"  at  all 
theatres,  and  the  actors  and  jests  of  the  day ;  she  had 
become  inured  to  this  life  of  perpetual  excitement,  this  rapid 
torrent  in  which  everything  is  forgotten.  She  no  longer 
craned  her  neck  or  stood  with  her  nose  in  the  air,  like  an 
image  of  Amazement,  at  the  constant  surprises  that  Paris  has 
for  a  stranger.  She  had  learned  to  breathe  that  witty,  vital- 
izing, teeming  atmosphere  where  clever  people  feel  themselves 
in  their  element,  and  which  they  can  no  longer  bear  to  quit. 

One  morning,  as  she  read  the  papers,  for  Lousteau  had 
them  all,  two  lines  carried  her  back  to  Sancerre  and  the  past, 
two  lines  that  seemed  not  unfamiliar — as  follows — 

"  Monsieur  le  Baron  de  Clagny,  Public  Prosecutor  to  the 
Criminal  Court  at  Sancerre,  has  been  appointed  Deputy  Public 
Prosecutor  to  the  Supreme  Court  in  Paris." 

"  How  well  that  worthy  lawyer  loves  you  !  "  said  the  jour- 
nalist, smiling. 

"  Poor  man  !  "  said  she.  "What  did  I  tell  you?  He  is 
following  me." 

Etienne  and  Dinah  were  just  then  at  the  most  dazzling  and 
fervid  stage  of  a  passion  when  each  is  perfectly  accustomed  to 


148  THE  MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT. 

the  other,  and  yet  love  has  not  lost  its  freshness  and  relish. 
The  lovers  know  each  other  well,  but  all  is  not  yet  understood  ; 
they  have  not  been  a  second  time  to  the  same  secret  haunts  of 
the  soul ;  they  have  not  studied  each  other  till  they  know,  as 
they  must  later,  the  very  thought,  word,  and  gesture  that  re- 
sponds to  every  event,  the  greatest  and  the  smallest.  En- 
chantment reigns ;  there  are  no  collisions,  no  differences  of 
opinion,  no  cold  looks.  Their  two  souls  are  always  on  the 
same  side.  And  Dinah  would  speak  the  magical  words,  em- 
phasized by  the  yet  more  magical  expression  and  looks  which 
every  woman  can  use  under  such  circumstances. 

"  When  you  cease  to  love  me,  kill  me.  If  you  should  cease 
to  love  mc,  I  believe  I  could  kill  you  first  and  myself  after." 

To  this  sweet  exaggeration,  Lousteau  would  reply — 

"All  I  ask  of  God  is  to  see  you  as  constant  as  I  shall  be. 
It  is  you  who  will  desert  me  !  " 

''My  love  is  supreme." 

"Supreme,"  echoed  Lousteau.  *' Come,  now?  Suppose 
I  am  dragged  away  to  a  bachelor  party,  and  find  there  one  of 
my  former  mistresses,  and  she  makes  fun  of  me  ;  I,  out  of 
vanity,  behave  as  if  I  were  free,  and  do  not  come  in  here  till 
next  morning — would  you  still  love  me?" 

"A  woman  is  only  sure  of  being  loved  when  she  is  pre- 
ferred ;  and  if  you  came  back  to  me,  if Oh  !  you  make 

me  understand  what  the  happiness  would  be  of  forgiving  the 
man  I  adore." 

"Well,  then,  I  am  truly  loved  for  the  first  time  in  my 
life  !  "  cried  Lousteau. 

"At  last  you  understand  that  !  "  said  she. 

Lousteau  proposed  that  they  should  each  write  a  letter  set- 
ting forth  the  reasons  which  would  compel  them  to  end  by 
suicide.  Once  in  possession  of  such  a  document,  each  might 
kill  the  other  without  danger  in  case  of  infidelity.  But  in 
spite  of  mutual  promises,  neither  wrote  the  letter. 

The  journalist,  happy  for  the  moment,  promised  himself 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT.  149 

that  he  would  deceive  Dinah  when  he  should  be  tired  of  her, 
and  would  sacrifice  everything  to  the  requirements  of  that 
deception.  To  him  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  was  a  fortune 
in  herself.     At  the  same  time,  he  felt  the  yoke. 

Dinah,  by  consenting  to  this  union,  showed  a  generous 
mind  and  the  power  derived  from  self-respect.  In  this  abso- 
lute intimacy,  in  which  both  lovers  put  off  their  mask,  the 
young  woman  never  abdicated  her  modesty,  her  masculine 
rectitude,  and  the  strength  peculiar  to  ambitious  souls,  which 
formed  the  basis  of  her  character.  Lousteau  involuntarily 
held  her  in  high  esteem.  As  a  Parisian,  Dinah  was  superior 
to  the  most  fascinating  courtesan  ;  she  could  be  as  amusing 
and  as  witty  as  Malaga  ;  but  her  extensive  information,  her 
habits  of  mind,  her  vast  reading  enabled  her  to  generalize  her 
wit,  while  the  Florines  and  the  Schontzcs  exerted  theirs  over 
a  very  narrow  circle. 

"There  is  in  Dinah,"  said  Etienne  to  Bixiou,  "the  stuff  to 
make  both  a  Ninon  and  a  de  Stael." 

"A  woman  who  combines  an  encyclopaedia  and  a  seraglio 
is  very  dangerous,"  replied  the  mocking  spirit. 

When  the  expected  infant  became  a  visible  fact,  Madame 
de  La  Baudraye  would  be  seen  no  more;  but  before  shutting 
herself  up,  never  to  go  out  unless  into  the  country,  she  was 
bent  on  being  present  at  the  first  performance  of  a  play  by 
Nathan.  This  literary  solemnity  occupied  the  minds  of  the 
two  thousand  persons  who  regard  themselves  as  constituting 
"all  Paris."  Dinah,  wlio  had  never  been  at  a  first-night's 
performance,  was  full  of  very  natural  curiosity.  She  had  by 
this  time  arrived  at  such  a  pitch  of  affection  for  Lousteau  that 
she  gloried  in  her  misconduct ;  she  exerted  a  sort  of  savage 
strength  to  defy  the  world ;  she  was  determined  to  look  it  in 
the  face  without  turning  her  head  aside. 

She  dressed  herself  to  perfection,  in  a  style  suited  to  her 
delicate  looks  and  the  sicklv  whiteness  of  her  face.  Her 
pallid  complexion   gave  her  an  expression  of  refinement,  and 


150  THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT. 

her  black  hair  in  smooth  bands  enhanced  her  pallor.  Her 
brilliant  gray  eyes  looked  finer  than  ever,  set  in  dark  rings. 
But  a  terribly  distressing  incident  awaited  her.  By  a  very 
simple  chance,  the  box  given  to  the  journalist,  on  the  first 
tier,  was  next  to  that  which  Anna  Grossetete  had  taken.  The 
two  intimate  friends  did  not  even  bow ;  neither  chose  to  ac- 
knowledge the  other.  At  the  end  of  the  first  act  Lousteau 
left  his  seat,  abandoning  Dinah  to  the  fire  of  eyes,  the  glare 
of  opera-glasses ;  while  the  Baronne  de  Fontaine  and  the 
Comtesse  Marie  de  Vandenesse,  who  accompanied  her,  re- 
ceived some  of  the  most  distinguished  men  of  fashion. 

Dinah's  solitude  was  all  the  more  distressing  because  she 
had  not  the  art  of  putting  a  good  face  on  the  matter  by  ex- 
amining the  company  through  her  opera-glass.  In  vain  did 
she  try  to  assume  a  dignified  and  thoughtful  attitude,  and  fix 
her  eyes  on  vacancy;  she  was  overpoweringly  conscious  of 
being  the  object  of  general  attention  ;  she  could  not  disguise 
her  discomfort,  and  lapsed  a  little  into  provincialism,  display- 
ing her  handkerchief  and  making  involuntary  movements  of 
which  she  had  almost  cured  herself.  At  last,  between  the 
second  and  third  acts,  a  man  had  himself  admitted  to  Dinah's 
box  !     It  was  Monsieur  de  Clagnv. 

"  I  am  happy  to  see  you,  to  tell  you  how  much  I  am  pleased 
by  your  promotion,"  said  she. 

"  Oh  !  madame,  for  whom  should  I  come  to  Paris ?" 

"What!"  said  she.  "Have  I  anything  to  do  with  your 
appointment?  " 

"Everything,"  said  he.  "Since  you  left  Sancerre,  it  had 
become  intolerable  to  me;  I  was  dying " 

"Your  sincere  friendship  does  me  good,"  replied  she, 
holding  out  her  hand.  "I  am  in  a  position  to  make  much 
of  my  true  friends;  I  now  know  their  value.  I  feared  I  must 
have  lost  your  esteem,  but  the  proof  you  have  given  me  by 
this  visit  touches  me  more  deeply  than  your  ten  years'  attach- 
ment." 


THE   MUSE    OF    THE   DEPARTMENT.  151 

"You  are  an  object  of  curiosity  to  the  whole  house,"  said 
the  lawyer.  "  Oh  !  my  dear,  is  this  a  part  for  you  to  be  play- 
ing? Could  you  not  be  happy  and  yet  remain  honored?  1 
have  just  heard  that  you  are  Monsieur  Etienne  Lousteau's  mis- 
tress, that  you  live  together  as  man  and  wife  !  You  have 
broken  for  ever  with  society ;  even  if  you  should  some  day 
marry  your  lover,  the  time  will  come  when  you  will  feel  the 
want  of  the  respectability  you  now  despise.  Ought  you  not 
to  be  in  a  home  of  your  own  with  your  mother,  who  loves  you 
well  enough  to  protect  you  with  her  segis?  Appearances  at 
least  would  be  saved." 

"  I  am  in  the  wrong  to  have  come  here,"  replied  she,  "  that 
is  all.  I  have  bid  farewell  to  all  the  advantages  which  the 
world  confers  on  women  who  knov/  how  to  reconcile  happi- 
ness and  the  proprieties.  My  abnegation  is  so  complete  that 
I  only  wish  I  could  clear  a  vast  space  about  me  to  make  a 
desert  of  my  love,  full  of  God,  of  him,  and  of  myself.  We 
have  made  too  many  sacrifices  on  both  sides  not  to  be  united 
— united  by  disgrace  if  you  will,  but  indissolubly  one.  I  am 
happy;  so  happy  that  I  can  love  freely,  my  friend,  and  con- 
fide in  you  more  than  of  old — for  I  need  a  friend." 

The  lawyer  was  magnanimous — nay,  truly  great.  To  this 
declaration,  in  which  Dinah's  soul  thrilled,  he  replied  in 
heart-rending  tones — 

"  I  wanted  to  go  to  see  you,  to  be  sure  that  you  were  loved: 
I  shall  now  be  easy,  and  no  longer  alarmed  as  to  your  future. 
But  will  your  lover  appreciate  the  magnitude  of  your  sacrifice  ; 
is  there  any  gratitude  in  his  affection  ?  " 

"Come  to  the  Rue  des  Martyrs  and  you  will  see!"  she 
exclaimed. 

"Yes,  I  will  call,"  he  replied.  "I  have  already  passed 
your  door  without  daring  to  inquire  for  you.  You  do  not  yet 
know  the  literary  world.  There  are  glorious  exceptions,  no 
doubt ;  but  these  men  of  letters  drag  terrible  evils  in  their 
train  ;  among  these  I  account  publicity  as  one  of  the  greatest. 


152  THE  MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT. 

for  it  blights  everything.  A  woman  may  at  any  time  commit 
herself  with " 

"With  a  public  prosecutor?"  the  baroness  put  in  with  a 
smile. 

"Well ! — and  then  after  a  rupture  there  is  still  something 
to  fall  back  on ;  the  world  has  known  nothing.  But  with  a 
more  or  less  famous  man  the  public  is  thoroughly  informed. 
Why,  look  there  !  What  an  example  you  have  close  at  hand  ! 
You  are  sitting  back  to  back  with  the  Comtcsse  Marie  Van- 
dcncsse,  who  was  within  an  ace  of  committing  the  utmost 
folly  for  a  more  celebrated  man  than  Lousteau — for  Nathan — 
and  now  they  do  not  even  recognize  each  other.  After  going 
to  the  very  edge  of  the  precipice,  the  countess  was  saved,  no 
one  knows  how ;  she  neither  left  her  husband  nor  her  house ; 
but  as  a  famous  man  was  concerned,  she  was  the  talk  of  the 
town  for  a  whole  winter.  But  for  her  husband's  great  for- 
tune, great  name,  and  high  position,  but  for  the  admirable 
management  of  that  true  statesman — whose  conduct  to  his 
wife,  they  say,  was  perfect — she  would  have  been  ruined ;  in 
her  position  no  other  woman  would  have  remained  respected 
as  she  is." 

"And  how  was  Sancerre  when  you  came  away?"  asked 
Madame  de  La  Baudraye,  to  change  the  subject. 

"  Monsieur  de  La  Baudraye  announced  that  your  expected 
confinement  after  so  many  years  made  it  necessary  that  it 
should  take  place  in  Paris,  and  that  he  had  insisted  on  your 
going  to  be  attended  by  the  first  physicians,"  replied  Mon- 
sieur de  Clagny,  guessing  what  it  was  that  Dinah  most  wanted 
to  know.  "And  so,  in  spite  of  the  commotion  to  which  your 
departure  gave  rise,  you  still  have  your  legal  status,"  added 
the  public  prosecutor. 

"Why!"  she  exclaimed,  "can  Monsieur  de  La  Baudraye 
still  hope " 

"Your  husband,  madame,  did  what  he  always  does — made 
a  little  calculation." 


THE   MUSE    OF  THE  DEPARTMENT.  153 

The  lawyer  left  the  box  when  the  journalist  returned,  bow- 
ing with  dignity. 

"  You  are  a  greater  hit  than  the  piece,"  said  Etienne  to 
Dinah. 

This  brief  triumph  brought  greater  happiness  to  the  poor 
woman  than  she  had  ever  known  in  the  whole  of  her  provin- 
cial existence  ;  still,  as  they  left  the  theatre  she  was  very  grave. 

"  What  ails  you,  my  Didine?  "  asked  Lousteau. 

*•  I  am  wondering  how  a  woman  succeeds  in  conquering  the 
world  ?  " 

"  There  are  two  ways.  One  is  by  being  Madame  de  Stael, 
ihe  other  is  by  having  two  hundred  thousand  francs  a  year." 

"  Society,"  said  she,  "asserts  its  hold  on  us  by  appealing 
to  our  vanity,  our  love  of  appearances.  Pooh  !  We  will  be 
philosophers  !  '' 

That  evening  was  the  last  gleam  of  the  delusive  well-being 
in  which  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  had  lived  since  coming  to 
Paris.  Three  days  later  she  observed  a  cloud  on  Lousteau's 
brow  as  he  walked  round  the  little  garden-plot,  smoking  a 
cigar.  This  woman,  who  acquired  from  her  husband  the 
habit  and  the  pleasure  of  never  owing  anybody  a  sou,  was 
informed  that  the  household  was  penniless,  v^nth  two  quarters' 
rent  owing,  and  on  the  eve,  in  fact,  of  an  execution. 

This  reality  of  Paris  life  pierced  Dinah's  heart  like  a  thorn  ; 
she  repented  of  have  tempted  Etienne  into  the  extravagances 
of  love.  It  is  so  difficult  to  pass  from  pleasure  to  work,  that 
happiness  has  wrecked  more  poems  than  sorrows  ever  helped 
to  flow  in  sparkling  jests.  Dinah,  happy  in  seeing  Etienne 
taking  his  ease,  smoking  a  cigar  after  breakfast,  his  face  beam- 
ing as  he  basked  like  a  lizard  in  the  sunshine,  could  not  sum- 
mon up  courage  enough  to  make  herself  the  bum-bailiff*  of  a 
magazine. 

It  struck  her  that   through  the  worthy  Migeon,  Pamela's 

*  A  rent-dislraining  constable. 
,1' 


154  THE  MUSE    OF  THE  DEPARTMENT. 

father,  she  might  pawn  the  few  jewels  she  possessed,  on  which 
her  ''uncle,"  for  she  was  learning  to  talk  the  slang  of  the 
town,  advanced  her  nine  hundred  francs.  She  kept  three 
hundred  for  her  baby-clothes  and  the  expenses  of  her  illness, 
and  joyfully  presented  the  sum  due  to  Lousteau,  who  was 
ploughing,  furrow  by  furrow,  or,  if  you  will,  line  by  line, 
through  a  novel  for  a  periodical. 

"  Dearest  heart,"  said  she,  "  finish  your  novel  without 
making  any  sacrifice  to  necessity  ;  polish  the  style,  work  up 
the  subject.  I  have  played  the  fine  lady  too  long;  I  am 
going  to  be  the  housewife  and  attend  to  business." 

For  the  last  four  months  Etienne  had  been  taking  Dinah  to 
the  Cafe  Riche  to  dine  every  day,  a  corner  being  always  kept 
for  them.  The  country-woman  was  in  dismay  at  being  told 
that  five  hundred  francs  were  owing  for  the  last  fortnight. 

"What!  we  have  been  drinking  wine  at  six  francs  a 
bottle  !  A  Norman  sole  costs  five  francs  ! — and  twenty  cen- 
times for  a  roll?  "  she  exclaimed,  as  she  looked  through  the 
bill  Lousteau  showed  her. 

"  Well,  it  makes  very  little  difference  to  us  whether  we  are 
robbed  at  a  restaurant  or  by  a  cook,"  said  Lousteau. 

"  Henceforth,  for  the  cost  of  your  dinner,  you  shall  live  like 
a  prince." 

Having  induced  the  landlord  to  let  her  have  a  kitchen  and 
two  servant's  rooms,  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  wrote  a  {^'tt 
lines  to  her  mother,  begging  her  to  send  her  some  linen  and 
a  loan  of  a  thousand  francs.  She  received  two  trunks  full  of 
linen,  some  plate,  and  two  thousand  francs,  sent  by  the  hand 
of  an  honest  and  pious  cook  recommended  her  by  her  mother. 

Ten  days  after  the  evening  at  the  theatre  when  they  had 
met,  Monsieur  de  Clagny  came  to  call  at  four  o'clock,  after 
coming  out  of  court,  and  found  Madame  de  La  Baudraye 
making  a  little  cap.  The  sight  of  this  proud  and  ambitious 
woman,  whose  mind  was  so  accomplished,  and  who  had 
queened  it  so  well  at  the  Castle  of  Anzy,  now  condescending 


THE  MUSE    OF  THE  DEPARTMENT.  155 

to  household  cares  and  sewing  for  the  coming  infant,  moved 
the  poor  lawyer,  who  had  just  left  the  bench.  And  as  he  saw 
the  pricks  on  one  of  the  taper  fingers  he  had  so  often 
kissed,  he  understood  that  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  was  not 
merely  playing  at  this  maternal  task. 

In  the  course  of  this  first  interview  the  magistrate  saw  to  the 
depths  of  Dinah's  soul.  This  perspicacity  in  a  man  so  much 
in  love  was  a  superhuman  effort.  He  saw  that  Didine  meant 
to  be  the  journalist's  guardian  spirit  and  lead  him  into  a 
nobler  road  ;  she  had  seen  that  the  difficulties  of  his  practical 
life  were  due  to  some  moral  defects.  Between  two  beings 
united  by  love — in  one  so  genuine,  and  in  the  other  so  well 
feigned — more  than  one  confidence  had  been  exchanged  in 
the  course  of  four  months.  Notwithstanding  the  care  with 
which  Etienne  wrapped  up  his  true  self,  a  word  now  and  then 
had  not  failed  to  enlighten  Dinah  as  to  the  previous  life  of  a 
man  whose  talents  were  so  hampered  by  poverty,  so  perverted 
by  bad  examples,  so  thwarted  by  obstacles  beyond  his  courage 
to  surmount.  "  He  will  be  a  greater  man  if  life  is  easy  to 
him,"  said  she  to  herself.  And  she  strove  to  make  him 
happy,  to  give  him  the  sense  of  a  sheltered  home  by  dint 
of  such  economy  and  method  as  are  familiar  to  provincial 
folk. 

Thus  Dinah  became  a  housekeeper,  as  she  had  become  a 
poet,  by  the  soaring  of  her  soul  toward  the  heights. 

"  His  happiness  will  be  my  absolution." 

These  words,  wrung  from  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  by  her 
friend,  the  lawyer,  accounted  for  the  existing  state  of  things. 
The  publicity  of  his  triumph,  flaunted  by  Etienne  on  the 
evening  of  the  first  performance,  had  very  plainly  shown  the 
lawyer  what  Lousteau's  purpose  was.  To  Etienne,  Madame 
de  La  Baudraye  was,  to  use  his  own  phrase,  "  a  fine  feather  in 
his  cap."  Far  from  preferring  the  joys  of  ashy  and  myste- 
rious passion,  of  hiding  such  exquisite  happiness  from  the 
eyes  of  the  world,  he  found  vulgar  satisfaction   in  displaying 


16G  THE  MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT. 

the  first  woman  of  respectability  who  had  ever  honored  him 
with  her  affection. 

The  judge,  however,  was  for  some  time  deceived  by  the 
attentions  which  any  man  would  lavish  on  any  woman  in  Ma- 
dame de  La  Baudraye's  situation,  and  Lousteau  made  them 
doubly  charming  by  the  ingratiating  ways  characteristic  of 
men  whose  manners  are  naturally  attractive.  There  are,  in 
fact,  men  who  have  something  of  the  monkey  in  them  by 
nature,  and  to  whom  the  assumption  of  the  most  engaging 
forms  of  sentiment  is  so  easy  that  the  actor  is  not  detected  ; 
and  Lousteau's  natural  gifts  had  been  fully  developed  on  the 
stage  on  which  he  had  hitherto  figured. 

Between  the  months  of  April  and  July,  when  Dinah  ex- 
pected her  confinement,  she  discovered  why  it  was  that  Lous- 
teau had  not  triumphed  over  poverty  ;  he  was  idle  and  had  no 
power  of  will.  The  brain,  to  be  sure,  must  obey  its  own 
laws;  it  recognizes  neither  the  exigencies  of  life  nor  the  voice 
of  honor ;  a  man  cannot  write  a  great  book  because  a  woman 
is  dying,  or  to  pay  a  discreditable  debt,  or  to  bring  up  a  family  ; 
at  the  same  time,  there  is  no  great  talent  without  a  strong  will. 
These  twin  forces  are  requisite  for  the  erection  of  the  vast 
edifice  of  personal  glory.  A  distinguished  genius  keeps  his 
brain  in  a  productive  condition,  just  as  the  knights  of  old  kept 
their  weapons  always  ready  for  battle.  They  conquer  indo- 
lence, they  deny  themselves  enervating  pleasures,  or  indulge 
only  to  a  fixed  limit  proportioned  to  their  powers.  This  ex- 
plains the  life  of  such  men  as  Walter  Scott,  Cuvier,  Voltaire, 
Newton,  Buffon,  Bayle,  Bossuet,  Leibnitz,  Lopez  de  Vega, 
Calderon,  Boccaccio,  Aretino,  Aristotle — in  short,  every  man 
who  delighted,  governed,  or  led  his  contemporaries. 

A  man  may  and  ought  to  pride  himself  more  on  his  will 
than  on  his  talent.  Though  Talent  has  its  germ  in  a  cultivated 
gift.  Will  means  the  incessant  conquest  of  his  instincts,  of  pro- 
clivities subdued  and  mortified,  and  difficulties  of  every  kind 
heroically  defeated.     The  abuse  of  smoking  encouraged  Lous- 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT.  157 

teau's  indolence.     Tobacco,  which  can  lull  grief,  inevitably 
numbs  a  man's  energy. 

Then,  while  the  cigar  deteriorated  him  physically,  criticism 
as  a  profession  morally  stultified  a  man  so  easily  tempted  by 
pleasure.     Criticism  is  as  fatal  to  the  critic  as  seeing  two  sides 
of  a  question  is  to  a  pleader.     In  these  professions  the  judg- 
ment is  undermined,  the  mind  loses  its  lucid  rectitude.     The 
writer  lives  by  taking  sides.     Thus,  we  may  distinguish  two 
kinds  of  criticism,  as  in  painting  we  may  distinguish  art  from 
practical  dexterity.     Criticism,  after  the  pattern  of  most  con- 
temporary leader-writers,  is  the  expression  of  judgments  formed 
at  random  in  a  more  or  less  witty  way,  just  as  an  advocate 
pleads  in  court  on  the  most  contradictory  briefs.     The  news- 
paper critic  always  finds  a  subject  to  work  up  in  the  book  he 
is  discussing.     Done  after  this  fashion,  the  business  is  well 
adapted  to   indolent  brains,  to  men   devoid   of  the  sublime 
faculty  of  imagination,  or,  possessed  of  it  indeed,  but  lacking 
courage  to  cultivate  it.     Every  play,  every  book,  comes  to 
their  pen  as  a  subject,  making  no  demand  on  their  imagina- 
tions, and  of  which  they  simply  write  a  report,  seriously  or  in 
irony,  according  to   the   mood   of  the  moment.     As  to  an 
opinion,  whatever  it  may  be,  French  wit  can  always  justify  it, 
being   admirably  ready  to  defend   either  side  of  any  case. 
And  conscience  counts  for  so  little,  these  bravos  have  so  little 
value  for  their  own  words,  that  they  will  loudly  praise  in  the 
green-room  the  work  they  tear  to  tatters  in  print. 

Nay,  men  have  been  known  to  transfer  their  services  from 
one  paper  to  another  with.out  being  at  the  pains  to  consider 
that  the  opinions  of  a  new  sheet  must  be  diametrically  antag- 
onistic to  those  of  the  old.  Madame  dc  La  Baudraye  could 
smile  to  see  Lousteau  with  one  article  on  the  Legitimist  side 
and  one  on  the  side  of  the  new  dynasty,  both  on  the  same 
occasion.     She  admired  the  maxim  he  preached — 

"  We  are  the  attorneys  of  public  opinion." 

The  other  kind  of  criticism  is  a  science.     It  necessitates  a 


158  THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT. 

thorough  comprehension  of  each  work,  a  lucid  insight  into 
the  tendencies  of  the  age,  the  adoption  of  a  system,  and  faith 
in  fixed  principles — that  is  to  say,  a  scheme  of  jurisprudence, 
a  summing-up,  and  a  verdict.  The  critic  is  then  a  magistrate 
of  ideas,  the  censor  of  his  time  ;  he  fulfills  a  sacred  function  ; 
while  in  the  former  case  he  is  but  an  acrobat  who  turns  somer- 
saults for  a  living  as  long  as  he  has  a  leg  to  stand  on.  Be- 
tween Claud  Vignon  and  Lousteau  lay  the  gulf  that  divides 
mere  dexterity  from  art, 

Dinah,  whose  mind  was  soon  freed  from  rust,  and  whose 
intellect  was  by  no  means  narrow,  had  ere  long  taken  literary 
measure  of  her  idol.  She  saw  Lousteau  working  up  to  the 
last  minute  under  the  most  discreditable  compulsion,  and 
scamping  his  work,  as  painters  say  of  a  picture  from  which 
sound  technique  is  absent ;  but  she  would  excuse  him  by 
saying:  "  He  is  a  poet!  "  so  anxious  was  she  to  justify  him 
in  her  own  eyes.  When  she  thus  guessed  the  secret  of  many 
a  writer's  existence,  she  also  guessed  that  Lousteau's  pen  could 
never  be  trusted  to  as  a  resource. 

Then  her  love  for  him  led  her  to  take  a  step  she  would 
never  have  thought  of  for  her  own  sake.  Through  her  mother 
she  tried  to  negotiate  with  her  husband  for  an  allowance,  but 
without  Etienne's  knowledge  ;  for,  as  she  thought,  it  would  be 
an  offense  to  his  delicate  feelings,  which  must  be  considered. 
A  few  days  before  the  end  of  July,  Dinah  crumpled  up  in  her 
wrath  the  letter  from  her  mother  containing  Monsieur  d:  La 
Baudraye's  ultimatum- — 

"  Madame  de  La  Eaudraye  cannot  need  an  allowance  in 
Paris  when  she  can  live  in  perfect  luxury  at  her  Castle  of 
Anzy:  she  may  return." 

Lousteau  picked  up  this  letter  and  read  it. 

"  I  will  avenge  you!"  said  he  to  Dinah  in  the  ominous 
tone  that  delights  a  woman  when  her  antipathies  are  flattered. 

Five  days  after  this,  Bianchon  and  Duriau,  the  famous 
ladies'  doctor,  were  engaged  at  Lousteau's ;  for  he,  ever  since 


THE   MUSE    OF  THE  DEPARTMENT.  159 

little  La  Baudraye's  reply,  had  been  making  a  great  display  of 
his  joy  and  importance  over  the  advent  of  the  infant.  Mon- 
sieur de  Clagny  and  Madame  Piedefer — sent  for  in  all  haste 
— were  to  be  the  godparents,  for  the  cautious  magistrate  feare(l 
lest  Lousteau  should  commit  some  compromising  blunder. 
Madame  de  La  Baudraye  gave  birth  to  a  boy  that  might  have 
filled  a  queen  with  envy  who  hoped  for  an  heir-presumptive. 
Bianchon  and  Monsieur  de  Clagny  went  off  to  register  the 
child  at  the  mayor's  office  as  the  son  of  Monsieur  and  Madame 
deLa  Baudraye,  unknown  to  Etienne,  who,  on  his  part,  rushed 
off  to  a  printer's  to  have  this  circular  set  up : 

' '  Madame  la  Baronnc  de  La  Baudraye  is  haf^pily  delivered 
of  a  son. 

"  Monsieur  Etienne  Lousteau  has  the  pleasure  of  informing 
you  of  the  fact. 

' '  The  mother  and  child  are  doing  well. ' ' 

Lousteau  had  already  sent  out  sixty  of  these  announcements 
when  Monsieur  de  Clagny,  on  coming  to  make  inquiries,  hap- 
pened to  see  the  list  of  the  persons  at  Sancerre  to  whom  Lous- 
teau proposed  to  send  this  amazing  notice,  written  below  the 
names  of  the  persons  in  Paris  to  whom  it  was  already  gone. 
Tlie  lawyer  confiscated  the  list  and  the  remainder  of  the  cir- 
culars, showed  them  to  Madame  Piedefer,  begging  her  on  no 
account  to  allow  Lousteau  to  carry  on  this  atrocious  jest,  and 
jumped  into  a  cab.  The  devoted  friend  then  ordered  from 
the  same  printer  another  announcement  in  the  following  words  : 

' '  Madame  la  Baronne  de  La  Baudraye  is  happily  delivered 
of  a  son. 

' '  Monsieur  le  Baron  de  La  Baudraye  has  the  honor  of  in- 
forming  you  of  the  fact. 

' '  Mother  and  child  are  doing  well. '  * 


160  THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT. 

After  seeing  the  proofs  destroyed,  the  form  of  type,  every- 
thing  that  could  bear  witness  to  the  existence  of  the  former 
document,  Monsieur  de  Clagny  set  to  work  to  intercept  those 
tliat  had  been  sent ;  in  many  cases  he  changed  them  at  the 
porter's  lodge,  he  got  thirty  back  into  his  own  hands,  and  at 
last,  after  three  days  of  hard  work,  only  one  of  the  original 
notes  existed,  that,  namely,  sent  to  Nathan. 

Five  times  had  the  lawyer  called  on  the  great  man  without 
finding  him.  By  the  time  Monsieur  de  Clagny  was  admitted, 
after  requesting  an  interview,  the  story  of  the  announcement 
was  known  to  all  Paris.  Some  persons  regarded  it  as  one  of 
those  waggish  calumnies,  a  sort  of  stab  to  which  every  reputa- 
tion, even  the  most  ephemeral,  is  exposed  ;  others  said  they 
had  read  the  paper  and  returned  it  to  some  friend  of  the  La 
Baudraye  family;  a  great  many  declaimed  against  the  immor- 
ality of  journalists  ;  in  short,  this  last  remaining  specimen  was 
regarded  as  a  curiosity.  Florine,  with  whom  Nathan  was 
living,  had  shown  it  about,  stamped  in  the  postofifice  as  paid, 
and  addressed  in  Etienne's  hand.  So,  as  soon  as  the  judge 
spoke  of  the  announcement,  Nathan  began  to  smile. 

"  Give  up  that  monument  of  recklessness  and  folly  ?  "  cried 
he.  ''  That  autograph  is  one  of  those  weapons  which  an 
athlete  in  the  circus  cannot  afford  to  lay  down.  That  note 
proves  that  Lousteau  has  no  heart,  no  taste,  no  dignity;  that 
he  knows  nothing  of  the  world  nor  of  public  morality;  that 
he  insults  himself  when  he  can  find  no  one  else  to  insult. 
None  but  the  son  of  a  provincial  citizen  imported  from  San- 
cerre  to  become  a  poet,  but  who  is  only  the  bravo  of  some 
contemptible  magazine,  could  ever  have  sent  out  such  a  cir- 
cular letter,  as  you  must  allow,  monsieur.  This  is  a  docu- 
ment indispensable  to  the  archives  of  the  age.  To-day  Lous- 
teau flatters  me,  to-morrow  he  may  ask  for  my  head.  Excuse 
me,  I  forgot  you  were  a  judge. 

"  I  have  gone  through  a  passion  for  a  lady,  a  great  lady,  as 
far  superior  to  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  as  your  fine  feeling. 


THE  MUSE    OF  THE   DEPARTMENT.  161 

monsieur,  is  superior  to  Lousteau's  vulgar  retaliation ;  but  I 
would  have  died  rather  than  utter  her  name.  A  few  months 
of  her  .lirs  and  graces  cost  me  a  hundred  thousand  francs  and 
my  prospects  for  life;  but  I  do  not  think  the  price  too  high  ! 
And  I  have  never  murmured  !  If  a  woman  betrays  the  secret 
of  her  passion,  it  is  the  supreme  offering  of  her  love,  but  a 
man  !     He  must  be  a  Lousteau  ! 

"  No,  I  would  not  give  up  that  paper  for  a  thousand 
crowns." 

"  Monsieur,"  said  the  lawyer  at  last,  after  an  eloquent  battle 
lastinsf  half  an  hour,  "I  have  called  on  fifteen  or  sixteen  men 
of  letters  about  this  affair,  and  can  it  be  that  you  are  the  only 
one  immovable  by  an  appeal  of  honor?  It  is  not  for  Etienne 
Lousteau  that  I  plead,  but  for  a  woman  and  child,  both  equally 
ignorant  of  the  damage  thus  done  to  their  fortune,  their  pros- 
pects, and  their  honor.  Who  knows,  monsieur,  whether  you 
might  not  some  day  be  compelled  to  plead  for  some  favor  of 
justice  for  a  friend,  for  some  person  whose  honor  was  dearer 
to  you  than  your  own.  It  might  be  remembered  against  you 
that  you  had  been  ruthless.  Can  such  a  man  as  you  are  hesi- 
tate?" added  Monsieur  de  Clagny. 

"  I  only  wished  you  to  understand  the  extent  of  the  sacri- 
fice," replied  Nathan,  giving  up  the  letter,  as  he  reflected  on 
the  judge's  influence  and  accepted  this  implied  bargain. 

When  the  journalist's  stupid  jest  had  been  counteracted, 
Monsieur  de  Clagny  went  to  give  him  a  rating  in  the  presence 
of  Madame  Piedefer;  but  he  found  Lousteau  fuming  with 
irritation. 

"What  I  did,  monsieur,  I  did  with  a  purpose!"  replied 
Etienne.  "Monsieur  de  La  Baudraye  has  sixty  thousand 
francs  a  year,  and  refuses  to  make  his  wife  an  allowance ;  I 
wished  to  make  him  feel  that  the  child  is  in  my  power." 

"  Yes,  monsieur,  I  quite  suspected  it,"  replied  the  lawyer. 
"  For  that  reason  I  readily  agreed  to  be  little  Polydore's  god- 
father, and  he  is  registered  as  the  son  of  the  Baron  and  Baronne 
11 


162  THE   MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT. 

de  La  Baudraye;  if  you  have  the  feelings  of  a  father,  you 
ought  to  rejoice  in  knowing  that  the  child  is  heir  to  one  of 
the  finest  entailed  estates  in  France." 

"And  pray,  sir,  is  the  mother  to  die  of  hunger?" 

"Be  quite  easy,"  said  the  lawyer  bitterly,  having  dragged 
from  Lousteau  the  expression  of  feeling  he  had  so  long  been 
expecting,  "I  will  undertake  to  transact  the  matter  with 
Monsieur  de  La  Baudraye." 

Monsieur  de  Clagny  left  the  house  with  a  chill  at  his 
heart. 

Dinah,  his  idol,  was  loved  for  her  money.  Would  she  not, 
when  too  late,  have  her  eyes  opened  ? 

"  Poor  woman  !  "  said  the  lawyer,  as  he  walked  away. 
And  this  justice  we  will  do  him — for  to  whom  should  justice 
be  done  unless  to  a  judge? — he  loved  Dinah  too  sincerely  to 
regard  her  degradation  as  a  means  of  triumph  one  day ;  he 
was  all  pity  and  devotion ;  he  really  loved  her. 

The  care  and  nursing  of  the  infant,  its  cries,  the  quiet 
needed  for  the  mother  during  the  first  few  days,  and  the 
ubiquity  of  Madame  Piedefer,  were  so  entirely  adverse  to 
literary  labors,  that  Lousteau  moved  up  to  the  three  rooms 
taken  on  the  second  floor  for  the  old  bigot.  The  journalist, 
obliged  to  go  to  first  performances  without  Dinah,  and  living 
apart  from  her,  found  an  indescribable  charm  in  the  use  of  his 
liberty.  More  than  once  he  submitted  to  be  taken  by  the 
arm  and  dragged  off  to  some  jollification  ;  more  than  once  he 
found  himself  at  the  house  of  a  friend's  mistress  in  the  heart 
of  bohemia.  He  again  saw  women  brilliantly  young  and 
splendidly  dressed,  in  whom  economy  seemed  treason  to  their 
youth  and  power.  Dinah,  in  spite  of  her  striking  beauty,  after 
nursing  her  baby  for  three  months,  could  not  stand  comparison 
with  these  perishable  blossoms,  so  soon  faded,  but  so  showy  as 
long  as  they  live  rooted  in  opulence. 

Home  life  had,  nevertheless,  a  strong  attraction  for  Etienne. 


THE  MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT,  163 

In  three  months  the  mother  and  daughter,  with  the  help  of 
the  cook  from  Sancerre  and  of  little  Pamela,  had  given  the 
apartment  a  quite  changed  ajipearance.  The  journalist  found 
his  breakfast  and  his  dinner  there  served  with  a  sort  of  luxury. 
Dinah,  handsome  and  nicely  dressed,  was  careful  to  anticipate 
her  dear  Etienne's  wishes,  and  he  felt  himself  the  king  of  his 
home,  where  everything,  even  the  baby,  was  subject  to  his 
selfishness.  Dinah's  affection  was  to  be  seen  in  every  trifle; 
Lousteau  could  not  possibly  cease  the  entrancing  deceptions 
of  his  unreal  passion. 

Dinah,  meanwhile,  was  aware  of  a  source  of  ruin,  both  to 
her  love  and  to  the  household,  in  the  kind  of  life  into  which 
Lousteau  had  allowed  himself  to  drift.  At  the  end  of  ten 
months  she  weaned  her  baby,  installed  her  mother  in  the  up- 
stairs rooms,  and  restored  the  family  intimacy  which  indis- 
solubly  links  a  man  and  woman  when  the  woman  is  loving 
and  clever.  One  of  the  most  striking  circumstances  in  Benja- 
min Constant's  novel,  one  of  the  explanations  of  Ellenore's 
desertion,  is  the  want  of  daily — or,  if  you  will,  of  nightly — 
intercourse  between  her  and  Adolphe.  Each  of  the  lovers  has 
a  separate  home;  they  have  both  submitted  to  the  world  and 
saved  appearances.  Ellenore,  repeatedly  left  to  herself,  is  com- 
pelled to  vast  labors  of  affection  to  expel  the  thoughts  of  release 
which  captivate  Adolphe  when  absent.  The  constant  ex- 
change of  glances  and  thoughts  in  domestic  life  gives  a  woman 
such  power  that  a  man  needs  stronger  reasons  for  desertion 
than  she  will  ever  give  him  so  long  as  she  loves  him. 

This  was  an  entirely  new  phase  both  to  Etienne  and  to 
Dinah.  Dinah  intended  to  be  indispensable ;  she  wanted  to 
infuse  fresh  energy  into  this  man,  whose  weakness  smiled  upon 
her,  for  she  thought  it  a  security.  She  found  him  subjects, 
sketched  the  treatment,  and  at  a  pinch  would  write  whole 
chapters.  She  revived  the  vitality  of  this  dying  talent  by 
transfusing  fresh  blood  into  his  veins;  she  pni)plied  him  with 
ideas  and  opinions.     In  short,  she  produced  two  books  which 


164  THE  MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT. 

were  a  success.  More  than  once  she  saved  Lousteau's  self- 
esteem  by  dictating,  correcting,  or  finishing  his  articles  when 
he  was  in  despair  at  his  own  lack  of  ideas.  The  secret  of  this 
collaboration  was  strictly  preserved ;  Madame  Piedefer  knew 
nothing  of  it. 

This  mental  galvanism  was  rewarded  by  improved  pay, 
enabling  them  to  live  comfortably  till  the  end  of  1838.  Lous- 
teau  became  used  to  seeing  Dinah  doing  his  work,  and  he 
paid  her,  as  the  French  people  say  in  their  vigorous  lingo,  in 
"  monkey  money  " — nothing  for  her  pains.  This  expenditure 
in  self-sacrifice  becomes  a  treasure  which  generous  souls  prize, 
and  the  more  she  gave  the  more  she  loved  Lousteau ;  the  time 
soon  came  when  Dinah  felt  that  it  would  be  too  bitter  a  grief 
ever  to  give  him  up. 

But  then  another  child  was  coming,  and  this  year  was  a 
terrible  trial.  In  spite  of  the  precautions  of  the  two  women, 
Etienne  contracted  debts  ;  he  worked  himself  to  death  to  pay 
them  off  while  Dinah  was  laid  up  ;  and,  knowing  him  as  she 
did,  she  thought  him  heroic.  But  after  this  effort,  appalled 
at  having  two  women,  two  children,  and  two  maids  on  his 
hands,  he  was  incapable  of  the  struggle  to  maintain  a  family 
by  his  pen  when  he  had  failed  to  maintain  even  himself. 
So  he  let  things  take  their  chance.  Then  the  ruthless  specu- 
lator exaggerated  the  farce  of  love-making  at  home  to  secure 
greater  liberty  abroad. 

Dinah  proudly  endured  the  burden  of  life  without  support. 
The  one  idea:  "  He  loves  me  !  "  gave  her  superhuman  strength. 
Slie  worked  as  hard  as  the  most  energetic  spirits  of  our  time. 
At  the  risk  of  her  beauty  and  health,  Dinah  was  to  Lousteau 
what  Mademoiselle  Delachaux  was  to  Gardane,  in  Diderot's 
noble  and  true  tale.  But  while  sacrificing  herself,  she  com- 
mitted the  magnanimous  blunder  of  sacrificing  dress.  She 
had  her  gowns  dyed,  and  wore  nothing  but  black.  She  stank 
of  black,  as  Malaga  said,  making  fun  mercilessly  of  Lousteau. 

By  the  end  of  1839,  Etienne,   following  the  example  of 


THE   MUSE    OF    'J HE  DEPARTMENT.  165 

Louis  XV.,  had,  by  dint  of  gradual  capitulations  of  conscience, 
come  to  the  point  of  establishing  a  distinction  between  his 
own  money  and  the  housekeeping  money,  just  as  Louis  XV. 
drew  the  line  between  his  privy  purse  and  the  public  moneys. 
He  deceived  Dinah  as  to  his  earnings.  On  discovering  this 
baseness,  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  went  through  fearful  tor- 
tures of  jealousy.  She  wanted  to  live  two  lives — the  life  of 
the  world  and  the  life  of  a  literary  woman ;  she  accompanied 
Lousteau  to  every  first-night  performance,  and  could  detect  in 
him  many  impulses  of  wounded  vanity,  for  her  black  attire 
rubbed  off,  as  it  were,  on  him,  clouding  his  brow,  and  some- 
times leading  him  to  be  quite  brutal.  He  was  really  the 
woman  of  the  two ;  and  he  had  all  a  woman's  exacting  per- 
versity;  he  would  reproach  Dinah  for  the  dowdiness  of  her 
appearance,  even  while  benefiting  by  the  sacrifice,  which  to  a 
mistress  is  so  cruel — exactly  like  a  woman  who,  after  sending 
a  man  through  a  gutter  to  save  her  honor,  tells  him  she  "can- 
not bear  dirt !  "  when  he  comes  out. 

Dinah  then  found  herself  obliged  to  gather  up  the  rather 
loose  reins  of  power  by  which  a  clever  woman  drives  a  man 
devoid  of  will.  But  in  so  doing  she  could  not  fail  to  lose 
much  of  her  moral  lustre.  Such  suspicions  as  she  betrayed 
drag  a  woman  into  quarrels  which  lead  to  disrespect,  because 
she  herself  comes  down  from  the  high  level  on  which  she  had 
at  first  placed  herself.  Next  she  made  some  concessions: 
Lousteau  was  allowed  to  entertain  several  of  his  friends — 
Nathan,  Bixiou,  Blondet,  Finot — whose  manners,  language, 
and  intercourse  were  depraving.  They  tried  to  convince 
Madame  de  La  Baudraye  that  her  principles  and  aversions 
were  a  survival  of  provincial  prudishness ;  and  they  preached 
the  creed  of  woman's  superiority. 

Before  long  her  jealousy  put  weapons  into  Lousteau's  hands. 
During  the  carnival  of  1840,  she  disguised  herself  to  go  to  the 
balls  at  the  opera-house,  and  to  suppers  where  she  met  courte- 
sans, in  order  to  keep  an  eye  on  all  Etienne's  amusements. 


166  THE  MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT. 

On  the  day  of  mid-lent — or,  rather,  at  eight  on  the  morning 
after — Dinah  came  home  from  the  ball  in  her  fancy  dress  to 
go  to  bed.  She  had  gone  to  spy  on  Loustcau,  who,  believing 
her  to  be  ill,  had  engaged  himself  for  that  evening  to  Fanny 
Bcaupre.  The  journalist,  warned  by  a  friend,  had  behaved 
so  as  to  deceive  the  poor  woman,  only  too  ready  to  be  de- 
ceived. 

As  she  stepped  out  of  the  hired  coach,  Dinah  met  Monsieur 
de  La  Baudraye,  to  whom  the  porter  pointed  her  out.  The 
little  old  man  took  his  wife  by  the  arm,  saying,  in  an  icy 
tone — 

**  So  this  is  you,  madame  !  " 

This  sudden  advent  of  conjugal  authority,  before  which  she 
felt  herself  so  small,  and,  above  all,  these  words,  almost  froze 
the  heart  of  the  unhappy  woman  caught  in  the  costume  of  a 
debardeur  (firewood  carrier).  To  escape  Etienne's  eye  the 
more  effectually,  she  had  chosen  a 'dress  he  was  not  likely  to 
detect  her  in.  She  took  advantage  of  the  mask  she  still  had 
on  to  escape  without  replying,  changed  her  dress,  and  went 
up  to  her  mother's  rooms,  where  she  found  her  husband  wait- 
ing for  her.  In  spite  of  her  assumed  dignity,  she  blushed  in 
the  old  man's  presence. 

"  What  do  you  want  of  me,  monsieur?  "  she  asked.  "Are 
we  not  separated  for  ever?" 

"Actually,  yes,"  said  Monsieur  de  La  Baudraye.     "Legally, 

no. 

Madame  Piedefer  was  telegraphing  signals  to  her  daughter, 
which  Dinah  presently  observed  and  understood. 

"  Nothing  could  have  brought  you  here  but  your  own  in- 
terests," she  said,  in  a  bitter  tone. 

"C«r  interests,"  said  the  little  man  coldlv,  "  for  we  have 
two  children.  Your  uncle,  Silas  Piedefer,  is  dead,  at  New 
York,  where,  after  having  made  and  lost  several  fortunes  in 
various  parts  of  the  world,  he  has  finally  left  some  seven  or 
eight  hundred  thousand  francs — they  say  twelve — but  there  is 


THE  MUSE    OF  THE  DEPARTMENT.  167 

Stock-in-trade  to  be  sold.     I  am  the  chief  in  our  common  in- 
terests, and  act  for  vou." 

"Oh  !  "  cried  Dinah,  "in  everything  that  relates  to  busi- 
ness, I  trust  to  no  one  but  Monsieur  de  Claijny.  He  knows 
the  law,  come  to  terms  with  him;  what  he  does  will  be  done 
right." 

"  I  have  no  occasion  for  Monsieur  Clagny,"  answered 
Monsieur  de  La  Baudraye,  "  to  take  my  children  from 
you " 

"  Your  children  !  "  exclaimed  Dinah.  "  Your  children,  to 
whom  you  have  not  sent  a  sou  !  Your  children  !  "  She 
burst  into  a  loud  shout  of  laughter ;  but  Monsieur  de  La  Bau- 
draye's  unmoved  coolness  threw  ice  on  the  explosion. 

"Your  mother  has  just  brought  them  to  show  me,"  he  went 
on.  "  They  are  charming  boys.  I  do  not  intend  to  part 
from  them.  I  shall  take  them  to  our  house  at  Anzy,  if  it 
were  only  to  save  them  from  seeing  their  mother  disguised 
like  a " 

"Silence!"  said  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  imperatively. 
"What  do  you  want  of  me  that  brought  you  here?  " 

"  A  power  of  attorney  to  receive  our  Uncle  Silas'  property." 

Dinah  took  a  pen,  wrote  two  lines  to  Monsieur  de  Clagny, 
and  desired  her  husband  to  call  again  in  the  afternoon. 

At  five  o'clock.  Monsieur  de  Clagny — who  had  been  pro- 
moted to  the  post  of  attorney-general — enlightened  Madame 
de  La  Baudraye  as  to  her  position  ;  still,  he  undertook  to 
arrange  everything  by  a  bargain  with  the  old  fellow,  whose 
visit  had  been  prompted  by  avarice  alone.  Monsieur  de  La 
Baudraye,  to  whom  his  wife's  power  of  attorney  was  indis- 
pensable to  enable  him  to  deal  with  the  business  as  he  wished, 
purchased  it  by  certain  concessions.  In  the  first  place,  he 
undertook  to  allow  her  ten  thousand  francs  a  year  so  long  as 
she  found  it  convenient — so  the  document  was  worded — to 
reside  in  Paris;  the  children,  each  on  attaining  the  age  of  six, 
were  to  be   placed  in   Monsieur  de  La  Baudraye's  keeping. 


168  THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT. 

Finally,  the  lawyer  exiracted  the  payment  of  the  allowance  in 
advance. 

Little  La  Baudraye,  who  came  jauntily  enough  to  say  fare- 
well to  his  wife  and  his  children,  appeared  in  a  white  india- 
rubber  overcoat  He  was  so  fani  on  his  feet,  and  so  exactly 
like  the  La  Baudraye  of  1836,  that  Dinah  despaired  of  ever 
burying  the  dreadful  little  dwarf.  From  the  garden,  wliere  he 
was  smoking  a  cigar,  the  journalist  could  watch  Monsieur  de 
La  Baudraye  for  so  long  as  it  took  the  little  reptile  to  cross  the 
forecourt,  but  that  was  enough  for  Lousteau  :  it  was  plain  to 
him  that  the  little  man  had  intended  to  wreck  every  hope  of 
his  dying  that  his  wife  might  have  conceived. 

This  short  scene  made  a  considerable  change  in  the  writer's 
secret  scheming.  As  he  smoked  a  second  cigar,  he  seriously 
reviewed  the  position. 

His  life  with  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  had  hitherto  cost 
him  quite  as  much  as  it  had  cost  her.  To  use  the  language  of 
business,  the  two  sides  of  the  account  balanced,  and  they 
could,  if  necessary,  cry  quits.  Considering  how  small  his 
income  was,  and  how  hardly  he  earned  it,  Lousteau  regarded 
himself,  morally  speaking,  as  the  creditor.  It  was,  no  doubt, 
a  favorable  moment  for  throwing  the  woman  over.  Tired  at 
the  end  of  three  years  of  playing  a  comedy  which  never  can 
become  a  habit,  he  was  perpetually  concealing  his  weariness  ; 
and  this  fellow,  who  was  accustomed  to  disguise  none  of  his 
feelings,  compelled  himself  to  wear  a  smile  at  home  like  that 
of  a  debtor  in  the  presence  of  his  creditor.  This  compulsion 
was  every  day  more  intolerable. 

Hitherto  the  immense  advantages  he  foresaw  in  the  future 
had  given  him  strength  ;  but  when  he  saw  Monsieur  de  La 
Baudraye  embark  for  the  United  States,  as  briskly  as  if  it  were 
to  go  down  to  Rouen  in  a  steamboat,  he  ceased  to  believe  in 
the  future. 

He  went  in  from  the  garden  to  the  pretty  drawing-roona, 
where  Dinah  had  just  taken  leave  of  her  husband. 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT.  169 

"  Etienne,"  said  Madame  de  La  Baudraye,  "  do  you  know 
what  my  lord  and  master  has  proposed  to  me  ?  In  the  event 
of  my  wishing  to  return  to  live  at  Anzy  during  his  absence, 
he  has  left  his  orders,  and  he  hopes  that  my  mother's  good 
advice  will  weigh  with  me,  and  that  I  shall  go  back  there  with 
my  children." 

"  It  is  very  good  advice,"  replied  Lousteau  drily,  knowing 
the  passionate  disclaimer  that  Dinah  expected,  and  indeed 
begged  for  with  her  eyes. 

The  tone,  the  words,  the  cold  look,  all  hit  the  hapless 
woman  so  hard,  who  lived  only  in  her  love,  that  two  large 
tears  trickled  slowly  down  her  cheeks,  while  she  did  not  speak 
a  word,  and  Lousteau  only  saw  them  when  she  took  out  her 
handkerchief  to  wipe  away  these  two  beads  of  anguish. 

"What  is  it,  Didine  ?  "  he  asked,  touched  to  the  heart  by 
this  excessive  sensibility. 

"  Just  as  I  was  priding  myself  on  having  won  our  freedom," 
said  she,  "  at  the  cost  of  my  fortune — by  selling — what  is 
most  precious  to  a  mother's  heart — selling  my  children  ! — for 
he  is  to  have  them  from  the  age  of  six — and  I  cannot  see 
them  without  going  to  Sancerre  ! — and  that  is  torture  !  Ah, 
dear  God  !     What  have  I  done ?  " 

Lousteau  knelt  down  by  her  and  kissed  her  hands  with  a 
lavish  display  of  coaxing  and  petting. 

"You  do  not  understand  me,"  said  he.  "  I  blame  myself, 
for  I  am  not  worth  such  sacrifices,  dear  angel.  I  am,  in  a 
literary  sense,  a  quite  '  .v,und-rate  man.  If  the  day  comes 
when  I  can  no  longer  cut  a  figure  at  the  bottom  of  the  news- 
paper, the  editors  will  let  me  lie,  like  an  old  shoe  flung  into 
the  rubbish  heap.  Remember,  we  tight-rope  dancers  have  no 
retiring  pension  !  The  State  would  have  too  many  clever 
men  on  its  hands  if  it  started  on  such  a  career  of  beneficence. 
I  am  forty-two,  and  I  am  as  idle  as  a  marmot.  I  feel  it — I 
know  it ;  "  and  he  took  her  hand,  "  my  love  can  only  be  fatal 
to  you. 


170  THE  MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT. 

"As  you  know,  at  two-and-twenty  I  lived  on  Florine  ;  but 
what  is  excusable  in  a  youth,  what  then  seems  smart  and 
charming,  is  a  disgrace  to  a  man  of  forty.  Hitherto  we  have 
shared  the  burden  of  existence,  and  it  has  not  been  lovely  for 
this  year  and  a  half.  Out  of  devotion  to  me  you  wear  nothing 
but  black,  and  that  does  me  no  credit."  Dinah  gave  one  of 
those  magnanimous  shrugs  which  are  worth  all  the  words  ever 
spoken.  "Yes,"  Etienne  went  on,  "I  know  you  sacrifice 
everything  to  my  whims,  even  your  beauty.  And  I,  with  a 
heart  worn  out  in  past  struggles,  a  soul  full  of  dark  presenti- 
ments as  to  the  future,  I  cannot  repay  your  exquisite  love  with 
an  equal  affection.  We  were  very  happy — without  a  cloud — 
for  a  long  time.  Well,  then,  I  cannot  bear  to  see  so  sweet  a 
poem  end  badly.     Am  I  wrong  ?  " 

Madame  de  La  Baudraye  loved  Etienne  so  truly,  that  this 
prudence,  worthy  of  de  Clagny,  gratified  her  and  stanched 
her  tears. 

"  He  loves  me  for  my  myself  alone!  "  thought  she,  looking 
at  him  with  smiling  eyes. 

After  four  years  of  intimacy,  this  woman's  love  now  com- 
bined every  shade  of  affection  which  our  powers  of  analysis 
can  discern,  and  which  modern  society  has  created;  one  of 
the  most  remarkable  men  of  our  age,  whose  death  is  a  recent 
loss  to  the  world  of  letters,  Beyle  (Stendhal),  was  the  first  to 
delineate  them  to  perfection. 

Lousteau  could  produce  in  Dinah  the  acute  agitation  which 
may  be  compared  to  magnetism,  that  upsets  every  pov/er  of 
the  mind  and  body,  and  overcomes  every  instinct  of  resistance 
in  a  woman.  A  look  from  him,  or  his  wand  laid  on  hers, 
reduced  her  to  implicit  obedience.  A  kind  word  or  a  smile 
wreathed  the  poor  woman's  soul  with  flowers ;  a  fond  look 
elated,  a  cold  look  depressed  her.  Wlien  she  walked,  taking 
his  arm  and  keeping  step  with  him  in  the  street  or  on  the 
boulevard,  she  was  so  entirely  absorbed  in  him  that  she  lost 
all  sense  of  herself.     Fascinated  by  this  fellow's  wit,  magnet- 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT.  171 

ized  by  his  airs,  his  vices  were  but  trivial  defects  in  her  eyes. 
She  loved  the  puffs  of  cigar  smoke  that  the  wind  brought  into 
her  room  from  the  garden  ;  she  went  to  inhale  tliem,  and 
made  no  wry  faces,  hiding  herself  to  enjoy  them.  She  hated 
the  publisher  or  the  newspaper  editor  who  refused  Lousteau 
money  on  the  ground  of  the  enormous  advances  he  had  had 
already.  She  deluded  herself  so  far  as  to  believe  that  her 
bohemian  was  writing  a  novel,  for  which  the  payment  was  to 
come,  instead  of  working  off  a  debt  long  since  incurred. 

This,  no  doubt,  is  true  love,  and  includes  every  mode  of 
loving;  the  love  of  the  heart  and  of  the  head — passion,  caprice, 
and  taste — to  accept  Beyle's  definitions.  Didine  loved  him 
so  wholly,  that  in  certain  moments  when  her  critical  judg- 
ment, just  by  nature  and  constantly  exercised  since  she  had 
lived  in  Paris,  compelled  her  to  read  to  the  bottom  of  Lous- 
teau's  soul,  sense  was  still  too  much  for  reason,  and  suggested 
excuses. 

"And  what  am  I?"  she  replied.  "A  woman  who  has  put 
herself  outside  the  pale.  Since  I  have  sacrificed  all  a  woman's 
honor,  why  should  not  you  sacrifice  to  me  some  of  a  man's 
honor?  Do  we  not  live  outside  the  limits  of  social  conven- 
tionality? Why  not  accept  from  me  what  Nathan  can  accept 
from  Florine?  We  will  square  accounts  when  we  part,  and 
only  death  can  part  us — you  know.  My  happiness  is  your 
honor,  Etienne,  as  my  constancy  and  your  happiness  are  mine. 
If  I  fail  to  make  you  happy,  all  is  at  an  end.  If  I  cause  you 
a  pang,  condemn  me. 

"  Our  debts  are  paid  ;  we  have  ten  thousand  francs  a  year, 
and  between  us  we  can  certainly  make  eight  thousand  francs  a 
year — I  will  write  theatrical  articles.  With  fifteen  hundred 
francs  a  month  we  shall  be  as  rich  as  Rothschild.  Be  quite 
easy.  I  will  have  some  lovely  dresses,  and  give  you  every  day 
some  gratified  vanity,  as  on  the  first  night  of  Nathan's  play 
that " 

"And  what  about  your  mother,  who  goes  to  mass  every  day, 


172  THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT. 

and  wants  to  bring  a  priest  to  the  house  and  make  you  give  up 
this  way  of  life?  " 

"Everyone  has  a  pet  vice.  You  smoke,  she  preaches  at 
me,  poor  woman  !  But  she  takes  great  care  of  the  children, 
she  takes  them  out,  she  is  absolutely  devoted,  and  idolizes  me. 
Would  you  hinder  her  from  crying?" 

"  What  will  be  thought  of  me  ?  " 

"But  we  do  not  live  for  the  world?"  cried  she,  raising 
Etienne  and  making  him  sit  by  her.  "  Beside,  we  shall  be 
married  some  day — we  have  the  risks  of  a  sea  voyage " 

"  I  never  thought  of  that,"  said  Lousteau  simply  ;  and  he 
added  to  himself:  "  Time  enough  to  part  when  little  La  Bau- 
draye  is  safe  back  again." 

From  that  day  forth  Etienne  lived  in  luxury  ;  and  Dinah,  on 
first  nights,  could  hold  her  own  with  the  best-dressed  women 
in  Paris.  Lousteau  was  so  fatuous  as  to  affect,  among  his 
friends,  the  attitude  of  a  man  overborne,  bored  to  extinction, 
ruined  by  Madame  de  La  Baudraye. 

"  Oh,  what  would  I  not  give  to  the  friend  who  would  de- 
liver me  from  Dinah  !  But  no  one  ever  can  !  "  said  he. 
"She  loves  me  enough  to  throw  herself  out  of  the  window  if 
I  told  her." 

The  journalist  was  duly  pitied ;  he  would  take  precautions 
against  Dinah's  jealousy  when  he  accepted  an  invitation.  And 
then  he  was  shamelessly  unfaithful.  Monsieur  de  Clagny, 
really  in  despair  at  seeing  Dinah  in  such  disgraceful  circum- 
stances when  she  might  have  been  so  rich,  and  in  so  wretched 
a  position  at  the  time  when  her  origirial  ambitions  would  have 
been  fulfilled,  came  to  warn  her,  to  tell  her — "You  are  be- 
trayed," and  she  only  replied,  "  I  know  it." 

The  lawyer  was  silenced ;  still  he  found  his  tongue  to  say 
one  thing. 

Madame  de  La  Baudraye  interrupted  him  when  he  had 
scarcely  spoken  a  word. 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT.  17S 

*'  Do  you  still  love  mc  ?  "  she  asked. 

*'  I  would  lose  my  soul  for  you  !  "  he  exclaimed,  starting  to 
his  feet. 

The  hapless  man's  eyes  flashed  like  torches,  he  trembled 
like  a  leaf,  his  throat  was  rigid,  his  hair  thrilled  to  the  roots ; 
he  believed  he  was  so  blessed  as  to  be  accepted  as  his  idol's 
avenger,  and  this  poor  joy  filled  him  with  rapture. 

"  Wliy  are  you  so  startled  ?  "  said  she,  making  him  sit  down 
again.     ''That  is  how  I  love  him." 

The  lawyer  understood  this  argument  of  mankind.  And 
there  were  tears  in  the  eyes  of  the  judge,  who  had  just  con- 
demned a  man  to  death  ! 

Lousteau's  satiety,  that  odious  conclusion  of  such  illicit  re- 
lations, had  betrayed  itself  in  a  thousand  little  things,  which 
are  like  grains  of  sand  thrown  against  the  panes  of  the  little 
magical  hut  where  those  who  love  dwell  and  dream.  These 
grains  of  sand,  which  grow  to  be  pebbles,  had  never  been  dis- 
cerned by  Dinah  till  they  were  as  big  as  rocks.  Madame  de 
La  Baudraye  had  at  last  thoroughly  understood  Lousteau's 
character. 

"He  is,"  she  had  said  to  her  mother,  "a  poet,  defenseless 
against  disaster,  mean  out  of  laziness,  not  for  want  of  heart, 
and  rather  too  prone  to  pleasure ;  in  short,  a  great  cat,  whom 
it  is  impossible  to  hate.  What  would  become  of  him  without 
me?  I  hindered  his  marriage;  he  has  no  prospects.  His 
talent  would  perish  in  privation." 

"  Oh,  my  Dinah  !  "  Madame  Piedefer  had  exclaimed,  "  what 
a  hell  you  live  in  !  What  is  the  feeling  that  gives  you  strength 
enough  to  persist?  " 

"  I  will  be  a  mother  to  him  !  "  she  had  replied. 

There  are  certain  horrible  situations  in  which  we  come  to 
no  decision  till  the  moment  when  our  friends  discern  our  dis- 
honor. We  accept  compromises  with  ourself  so  long  as  we 
escape  a  censor  who  comes  to  play  prosecutor.  Monsieur  de 
Clagny,  as  clumsy  as  a  tortured  man,  had  been  torturing  Dinah. 


174  THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT. 

"To  preserve  my  love  I  will  be  all  that  Madame  de  Pom- 
padour was  to  preserve  her  power,"  said  she  to  herself  when 
Monsieur  de  Clagny  had  left  her.  And  this  phrase  sufficiently 
proves  that  her  love  was  becoming  a  burden  to  her,  and  would 
presently  be  a  toil  rather  than  a  pleasure. 

The  part  now  assumed  by  Dinah  was  horribly  painful,  and 
Lousteau  made  it  no  easier  to  play.  When  he  wanted  to  go 
out  after  dinner  he  would  perform  the  tenderest  little  farces 
of  affection,  and  address  Dinah  in  words  full  of  devotion  ;  he 
would  take  her  by  the  chain,  and  when  he  had  bruised  her 
with  it,  even  while  he  hurt  her,  the  lordly  ingrate  would  say ; 
"  Did  I  wound  you  ?  " 

These  false  caresses  and  deceptions  had  degrading  conse- 
quences for  Dinah,  who  believed  in  a  revival  of  his  love.  The 
mother,  alas,  gave  way  to  the  mistress  with  shameful  readiness. 
She  felt  herself  a  mere  plaything  in  a  man's  hands,  and  at  last 
she  confessed  to  herself — 

''  Well,  then,  I  will  be  his  plaything  !  "  finding  joy  in  it — 
the  rapture  of  damnation. 

When  this  woman,  of  a  really  manly  spirit,  pictured  herself 
as  living  in  solitude,  she  felt  her  courage  fail.  She  preferred 
the  anticipated  and  inevitable  miseries  of  this  fierce  intimacy 
to  the  absence  of  the  joys,  which  were  all  the  more  exquisite 
because  they  arose  from  the  midst  of  remorse,  of  terrible 
struggles  with  herself,  of  a  No  persuaded  to  be  Yes.  At  every 
moment  she  seemed  to  come  across  the  pool  of  bitter  water 
found  in  a  desert,  and  drunk  with  greater  relish  than  the 
traveler  would  find  in  sipping  the  finest  wines  at  a  prince's 
table. 

When  Dinah  wondered  to  herself  at  midnight : 

"Will  he  come  home,  or  will  he  not?"  she  was  not  alive 
again  till  she  heard  the  familiar  sound  of  Lousteau's  boots  and 
his  well-known  ring  at  the  bell. 

She  would  often  try  to  restrain  him  by  giving  him  pleasure  ; 
she  would  hope  to  be  a  match  for  her  rivals,  and  leave  them 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT.  175 

no  hold  on  thai  satiated  heart.  How  many  times  a  day  would 
she  rehearse  the  tragedy  of  "  Le  Dernier  Jour  d'  un  condamne  " 
(The  Condemned's  Last  DayJ,  saying  to  herself:  •'  To-morrow 
we  part."  And  how  often  would  a  word,  a  look,  a  kiss  full 
of  apparently  artless  feeling,  bring  her  back  to  the  depths  of 

her  love  ! 

It  was  terrible.  More  than  once  had  she  meditated  suicide 
as  she  paced  the  little  town  garden  where  a  few  pale  flowers 
bloomed.  In  fact,  she  had  not  yet  exhausted  the  vast  treasure 
of  devotion  and  love  which  a  loving  woman  bears  in  her 
heart. 

The  romance  of  "  Adolphe  "  was  her  Bible,  her  study,  for 
above  all  else  she  would  not  be  an  Ellenore.  She  allowed 
herself  no  tears,  she  avoided  all  the  bitterness  so  cleverly  de- 
scribed by  the  critic  to  whom  we  owe  an  analysis  of  this  strik- 
ing work ;  whose  comments  indeed  seemed  to  Dinah  almost 
superior  to  the  book.  And  she  read  again  and  again  this  fine 
essay  by  the  only  real  critic  who  has  written  in  the  "Revue 
des  Deux  Mondes,"  an  article  now  printed  at  the  beginning 
of  the  new  edition  of  "  Adolphe." 

"  No,"  she  would  say  to  herself,  as  she  repeated  the  author's 
fateful  words,  "no,  I  will  not  'give  my  requests  the  form  of 
an  order,'  I  will  not  '•  fly  to  tears  as  a  means  of  revenge,'  I 
will  not  'condemn  the  things  I  once  approved  without  reser- 
vation,' I  will  not  'dog  his  footsteps  with  a  prying  eye  ; '  if 
he  plays  truant,  he  shall  not  on  his  return  'see  a  scornful  lip, 
whose  kiss  is  an  unanswerable  command.'  No,  '  my  silence 
shall  not  be  a  reproach  nor  my  first  word  a  quarrel.'  I  will 
not  be  like  every  other  woman  !  "  she  went  on,  laying  on  her 
table  the  little  yellow  paper  volume  which  had  already  attracted 
Lousteau's  remark  :  "  What  !  are  you  studying  '  Adolphe  ?  '  " 
"  If  for  one  day  only  he  should  recognize  my  merits  and  say : 
'That  victim  never  uttered  a  cry!' — it  will  be  all  I  ask. 
And  beside,  the  others  only  have  him  for  an  hour;  I  have 
him  for  life!" 


176  THE   MUSE    OF  THE   DEPARTMENT. 

Thinking  himself  justified  by  his  private  tribunal  in  punish- 
ing his  wife,  Monsieur  de  La  Baudraye  robbed  lier  to  achieve 
his  cherished  enterprise  of  reclaiming  three  thousand  acres  of 
moorland,  to  which  he  had  devoted  himself  ever  since  1S36, 
living  like  a  mouse.  He  manipulated  the  property  left  by 
Monsieur  Silas  Piedefer  so  ingeniously  that  he  contrived  to 
reduce  the  proved  value  to  eight  hundred  thousand  francs 
while  pocketing  twelve  hundred  thousand.  He  did  not  an- 
nounce his  return  ;  but  while  his  wife  was  enduring  unspeaka- 
ble woes,  he  was  building  farms,  digging  trenches,  and  plough- 
ing rough  ground  with  a  courage  that  ranked  him  among  the 
most  remarkable  agriculturists  of  the  province. 

The  four  hundred  thousand  francs  he  had  filched  from  his 
wife  were  spent  in  three  years  on  this  undertaking,  and  the 
estate  of  Anzy  was  expected  to  return  seventy-two  thousand 
francs  a  year  of  net  profits  after  the  taxes  were  paid.  The 
eight  hundred  thousand  he  invested  at  four  and  a  half  per 
cent,  in  the  Funds,  buying  at  eighty  francs,  at  the  time  of  the 
financial  crisis  brought  about  by  the  Ministry  of  the  First  of 
March,  as  it  was  called.  By  thus  securing  to  his  wife  an  in- 
come of  forty-eight  thousand  francs  he  considered  himself  no 
longer  in  her  debt.  Could  he  not  restore  the  odd  twelve 
hundred  thousand  as  soon  as  the  four  and  a  half  per  cents, 
had  risen  above  a  hundred  ?  He  was  now  the  greatest  man 
in  Sancerre,  with  the  exception  of  one — the  richest  proprietor 
in  France — whose  rival  he  considered  himself.  He  saw  him- 
self with  an  income  of  a  hundred  and  forty  thousand  francs, 
of  which  ninety  thousand  formed  the  revenue  from  the  lands 
he  had  entailed.  Having  calculated  that  beside  this  net  in- 
come he  paid  ten  thousand  francs  in  taxes,  three  thousand  in 
working  expenses,  ten  thousand  to  his  wife,  and  twelve  hun- 
dred to  his  mother-in-law,  he  would  say  in  the  literary  circles 
of  Sancerre — 

"  I  am  reputed  miserly,  and  said  to  spend  nothing  :  but  my 
outlay  amounts  to  twenty-six  thousand  five  hundred  francs  a 


THE  MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT.  177 

year.  And  I  have  still  to  pay  for  the  education  of  my  two 
children  !  I  daresay  it  is  not  a  pleasing  fact  to  the  Milauds 
of  Nevers,  but  the  second  house  of  La  Baudraye  may  yet  have 
as  noble  a  career  as  the  first.  I  shall  most  likely  go  to  Paris 
and  petition  the  King  of  the  French  to  grant  me  the  title  of 
count — Monsieur  Roy  is  a  count — and  my  wife  would  be 
pleased  to  be  Madame  la  Comtessc." 

And  this  was  said  with  such  splendid  coolness  that  no  one 
would  have  dared  to  laugh  at  the  little  man.  Only  Monsieur 
Boirouge,  the  presiding  judge,  remarked — 

"  In  your  place,  I  should  not  be  happy  unless  I  had  a 
daughter." 

'*  Well,  I  shall  go  to  Paris  before  long "  said  the  baron. 

In  the  early  part  of  1842  Madame  de  La  Baudraye,  feeling 
that  she  was  to  Lousteau  no  more  than  a  reserve  in  the  back- 
ground, had  again  sacrificed  herself  absolutely  to  secure  his 
comfort ;  she  had  resumed  her  black  raiment,  but  now  it  was 
in  sign  of  mourning,  for  her  pleasure  was  turning  to  remorse. 
She  was  too  often  put  to  shame  not  to  feel  the  weight  of  the 
chain,  and  her  mother  found  her  sunk  in  those  moods  of 
meditation  into  which  visions  of  the  future  cast  unhappy  souls 
in  a  sort  of  torpor. 

Madame  Piedefer,  by  the  advice  of  her  spiritual  director, 
was  on  the  watch  for  the  moment  of  exhaustion,  which  the 
priest  told  her  would  inevitably  supervene,  and  then  she 
pleaded  in  behalf  of  the  children.  She  restricted  herself  to 
urging  that  Dinah  and  Lousteau  should  live  apart,  not  asking 
her  to  give  him  up.  In  real  life  these  violent  situations  are 
not  closed  as  they  are  in  books,  by  death  or  cleverly  contrived 
catastrophes  ;  they  end  far  less  poetically — in  disgust,  in  the 
blighting  of  every  flower  of  the  soul,  in  the  commonplace  of 
habit,  and  very  often  too  in  another  passion,  which  robs  a 
wife  of  the  interest  which  is  traditionally  ascribed  to  women. 
So,  when  commonsense,  the  law  of  social  proprieties,  family 
interest — all  the  mixed  elements  which,  since  the  Restoration, 
12 


178  THE  MUSE    OF  THE  DEPARTMENT. 

have  been  dignified  by  the  name  of  Public  Morals,  out  of 
sheer  aversion  to  the  name  of  the  Catholic  religion — where  this 
is  seconded  by  a  sense  of  insults  a  little  too  offensive ;  when 
the  fatigue  of  constant  self-sacrifice  has  almost  reached  the 
point  of  exhaustion  ;  and  when,  under  these  circumstances,  a 
too  cruel  blow — one  of  those  mean  acts  which  a  man  never 
lets  a  woman  know  of  unless  he  believes  himself  to  be  her 
assured  master — puts  the  crowning  touch  to  her  revulsion  and 
disenchantment,  the  moment  has  come  for  the  intervention 
of  the  friend  who  undertakes  the  cure.  Madame  Piedefer 
had  no  great  difficulty  now  in  removing  the  film  from  her 
daughter's  eyes. 

She  sent  for  Monsieur  de  Clagny,  who  completed  the  work 
by  assuring  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  that,  if  she  would  give  up 
Eiienne,  her  husband  would  allow  her  to  keep  the  children 
and  to  live  in  Paris,  and  would  restore  her  to  the  command  of 
her  own  fortune. 

"And  what  a  life  you  are  leading  !  "  said  he.  "  With  care 
and  judgment,  and  the  support  of  some  pious  and  charitable 
persons,  you  may  have  a  salon  and  conquer  a  position.  Paris 
is  not  Sancerre." 

Dinah  left  it  to  Monsieur  de  Clagny  to  negotiate  a  reconcil- 
iation with  the  old  man. 

Monsieur  de  La  Baudraye  had  sold  his  wine  well,  he  had 
sold  his  wool,  he  had  felled  his  timber,  and,  without  telling 
his  wife,  he  had  come  to  Paris  to  invest  two  hundred  thousand 
francs  in  the  purchase  of  a  delightful  residence  in  the  Rue 
de  I'Arcade,  that  was  being  sold  in  liquidation  of  an  aristo- 
cratic house  that  was  in  difficulties.  He  had  been  a  member 
of  the  Council  for  the  Department  since  1826,  and  now,  pay- 
ing ten  thousand  francs  in  taxes,  he  was  doubly  qualified  for  a 
peerage  under  the  conditions  of  the  new  legislation. 

Some  time  before  the  elections  of  1842  he  had  put  himself 
forward  as  candidate  unless  he  were  meanwhile  called  to  the 
Upper  House  as  a  peer  of  France.     At  the  same  time,  he  asked 


THE  MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT.  179 

for  the  title  of  count,  and  for  promotion  to  the  higher  grade 
of  the  Legion  of  Honor.  In  the  matter  of  the  elections,  the 
Ministry  approved  of  everything  that  could  give  strength  to 
the  dynastic  nominations ;  now,  in  the  event  of  Monsieur  de 
La  Baudraye  being  won  over  to  the  Government,  Sancerre 
would  be  more  than  ever  a  rotten  borough  of  royalism.  Mon- 
sieur de  Clagny,  whose  talents  and  modesty  were  more  and 
more  highly  appreciated  by  the  authorities,  gave  Monsieur  de 
La  Baudraye  his  support ;  he  pointed  out  that  by  raising  this 
enterprising  agriculturist  to  the  peerage,  a  guarantee  would  be 
offered  to  such  important  undertakings. 

Monsieur  de  La  Baudraye,  then,  a  count,  a  peer  of  France, 
and  commander  of  the  Legion  of  Honor,  was  vain  enough  to 
wish  to  cut  a  figure  with  a  wife  and  handsomely  appointed 
house. 

"  He  wanted  to  enjoy  life,"  he  said. 

He  therefore  addressed  a  letter  to  his  wife,  dictated  by  Mon- 
sieur de  Clagny,  begging  her  to  live  under  his  roof  and  to 
furnish  the  house,  giving  play  to  the  taste  of  which  the  evi- 
dences, he  said,  had  charmed  him  at  the  Castle  of  Anzy.  The 
newly  made  count  pointed  out  to  his  wife  that  while  the  in- 
terests of  their  property  forbade  his  leaving  Sancerre,  the 
education  of  their  boys  required  her  presence  in  Paris.  The 
accommodating  husband  desired  Monsieur  de  Clagny  to  place 
sixty  thousand  francs  at  the  disposal  of  Madame  la  Comtesse 
for  the  interior  decoration  of  their  mansion,  requesting  that 
she  would  have  a  marble  tablet  inserted  over  the  gateway  with 
the  inscription  :  Hotel  de  La  Baudraye. 

He  then  accounted  to  his  wife  for  the  money  derived  from 
the  estate  of  Silas  Piedefer,  told  her  of  the  investment  at  four 
and  a  half  per  cent,  of  the  eight  hundred  thousand  francs  he 
had  brought  from  New  York,  and  allowed  her  that  income  for 
her  expenses,  including  the  education  of  the  children.  As  he 
would  be  compelled  to  stay  in  Paris  during  some  part  of  the 
session  of  the  House  of  Peers,  he  requested  his  wife  to  reserve 


180  THE  MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT. 

for  him  a  little  suite  of  rooms  in  an  etitresol^  over  the 
kitchens. 

"  Bless  me  !  why,  he  is  growing  young  again — a  gentleman  ! 
— a  magnifico  !  What  will  he  become  next?  It  is  quite 
alarming,"  said  Madame  de  La  Baudraye. 

"He  now  fulfills  all  your  wishes  at  the  age  of  twenty," 
replied  the  lawyer. 

The  comparison  of  her  future  prospects  with  her  present 
position  was  unendurable  to  Dinah.  Only  the  day  before, 
Anna  de  Fontaine  had  turned  her  head  away  in  order  to  avoid 
seeing  her  bosom  friend  at  the  Chamarolles'  school. 

"I  am  a  countess,"  said  Dinah  to  herself.  "  I  shall  have 
the  peer's  blue  hammer-cloth  on  my  carriage,  and  the  leaders 
of  the  literary  world  in  my  drawing-room — and  I  will  look  at 
her!"  And  it  was  this  little  triumph  that  told  with  all  its 
weight  at  the  moment  of  her  rehabilitation,  as  the  world's 
contempt  had  of  old  weighed  on  her  happiness. 

One  fine  day,  in  May,  1842,  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  paid 
all  her  little  household  debts  and  left  a  thousand  crowns  on 
the  top  of  the  packet  of  receipted  bills.  After  sending  her 
mother  and  the  children  away  to  the  Hotel  de  La  Baudraye, 
she  awaited  Lousteau,  dressed  ready  to  leave  the  house.  When 
the  deposed  king  of  her  heart  came  in  to  dinner,  she  said — 

"  I  have  upset  the  pot,  my  dear.  Madame  de  La  Baudraye 
requests  the  pleasure  of  your  company  at  the  Rocher  de 
Cancale." 

She  carried  off  Lousteau,  quite  bewildered  by  the  light  and 
easy  manners  assumed  by  the  woman  who  till  that  morning 
had  been  the  slave  of  his  least  whim,  for  she  too  had  been 
acting  a  farce  for  two  months  past. 

"Madame  de  La  Baudraye  is  figged  out  as  if  for  a  first 
night,"  said  he — '^  urte  premiere"  (a  first),  the  slang  abbrevi- 
ation for  a  first  performance. 

*A  half-story,  between  the  first  and  second. 


THE  MUSE    OF  THE  DEPARTMENT.  181 

"  Do  not  forget  the  respect  you  owe  to  Madame  de  La 
Baijdraye,"  said  Dinah  gravely.  "  I  do  not  mean  to  under- 
stand such  a  word  ^%  figged  out.'' 

"  Didine  a  rebel?"  said  he,  putting  his  arm  round  her 
waist. 

"There  is  no  such  person  as  Didine;  you  have  killed  her, 
my  dear,"  she  replied,  releasing  herself.  "I  am  taking  you 
to  the  first  performance  of  Madame  la  Comtesse  de  La  Bau- 
draye. ' ' 

"  It  is  true,  then,  that  our  insect  is  a  peer  of  France?  " 

"  The  nomination  is  to  be  gazetted  in  this  evening's  '  Moni- 
teur,'  as  I  am  told  by  Monsieur  de  Clagny,  who  is  promoted 
to  the  court  of  appeal." 

"Well,  it  is  quite  right,"  said  the  journalist.  "The  ento- 
mology of  society  ought  to  be  represented  in  the  Upper 
House." 

"  My  friend,  we  are  parting  for  ever,"  said  Madame  de  La 
Baudraye,  trying  to  control  the  trembling  of  her  voice.  "  I 
have  dismissed  the  two  servants.  When  you  go  in,  you  will 
find  the  house  in  order,  and  no  debts.  I  shall  always  feel  a 
mother's  affection  for  you,  but  in  secret.  Let  us  part  calmly, 
without  a  fuss,  like  decent  people. 

"  Have  you  had  a  fault  to  find  with  my  conduct  during  the 
past  six  years  ?  ' ' 

"None,  but  that  you  have  spoilt  my  life  and  wrecked  my 
prospects,"  said  he  in  a  hard  tone.  "You  have  read  Ben- 
jamin Constant's  book  very  diligently  ;  you  have  even  studied 
tlie  last  critique  on  it ;  but  you  have  read  with  a  woman's  eyes. 
Though  you  have  one  of  those  superior  intellects  which  would 
make  the  fortune  of  a  poet,  you  have  never  dared  to  take  the 
man's  point  of  view. 

"That  book,  my  dear,  is  of  both  sexes.  We  agreed  that 
books  were  male  or  female,  dark  or  fair.  In  *  Adolphc ' 
women  see  nothing  but  Ellenore  ;  young  men  see  only 
Adolphe;    men    of  experience  see    Ellenore   and   Adolphe; 


182  THE  MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT. 

political  men  see  the  whole  of  social  existence.  You  did  not 
think  it  necessary  to  read  the  soul  of  Adolphe — any  more 
than  your  critic  indeed,  who  saw  only  Ellenore.  What  kills 
that  poor  fellow,  my  dear,  is  that  he  has  sacrificed  his  future 
for  a  woman  ;  that  he  never  can  be  what  he  might  have  been 
— an  ambassador,  a  minister,  a  chamberlain,  a  poet — and 
rich.  He  gives  up  six  years  of  his  energy  at  that  stage  of  his 
life  when  a  man  is  ready  to  submit  to  the  hardships  of  any 
apprenticeship — to  a  petticoat,  which  he  outstrips  in  the 
career  of  ingratitude,  for  the  woman  who  has  thrown  over 
her  first  lover  is  certain  sooner  or  later  to  desert  the  second. 
Adolphe  is,  in  fact,  a  tow-haired  German,  who  has  not  spirit 
enough  to  be  false  to  Ellenore.  There  are  Adolphes  who 
spare  their  Ellenores  all  ignominious  quarreling  and  reproaches, 
who  say  to  themselves,  '  I  will  not  talk  of  what  I  have  sacri- 
ficed ;  I  will  not  for  ever  be  showing  the  stump  of  my  wrist 
to  that  incarnate  selfishness  I  have  made  my  queen,'  as  Ra- 
morny  does  in  '  The  Fair  Maid  of  Perth.'  But  men  like  that, 
my  dear,  get  cast  aside. 

"Adolphe  is  a  man  of  birth,  an  aristocratic  nature,  who 
wants  to  get  back  into  the  high  road  to  honors  and  recover  his 
social  birthright,  his  blighted  position.  You,  at  this  moment, 
are  playing  both  parts.  You  are  suffering  from  the  pangs  of 
having  lost  your  position,  and  think  yourself  justified  in 
throwing  over  a  hapless  lover  whose  misfortune  it  has  been  that 
he  fancied  you  so  far  superior  as  to  understand  that,  though  a 
man's  heart  ought  to  be  true,  his  sex  may  be  allowed  to  in- 
dulge its  caprices." 

"And  do  you  suppose  that  I  shall  not  make  it  my  business 
to  restore  to  you  all  you  have  lost  by  me?  Be  quite  easy," 
said  Madame  de  La  Baudraye,  astounded  by  this  attack. 
"  Your  Ellenore  is  not  dying ;  and,  if  God  gives  her  life,  if 
you  amend  your  ways,  if  you  give  up  courtesans  and  actresses, 
we  will  find  you  a  better  match  than  a  Felicie  Cardot." 

The  two  lovers  were  sullen  ;  Lousteau  affected  dejection,  he 


THE   MUSE   OF   THE   DEPARTMENT.  183 

aimed  at  appearing  hard  and  cold  ;   while   Dinah,  really  dis- 
tressed, listened  to  the  reproaches  of  her  heart. 

"Why,"  said  Lousteau  presently,  "why  not  end  as  we 
ought  to  have  begun — hide  our  love  from  all  eyes,  and  see 
each  other  in  secret  ?  " 

"  Never  !  "  cried  the  new-made  countess,  with  an  icy  look, 
"  Do  you  not  comprehend  that  we  are,  after  all,  but  finite 
creatures?  Our  feelings  seem  infinite  by  reason  of  our  antici- 
pation of  heaven,  but  here  on  earth  they  are  limited  by  the 
strength  of  our  physical  being.  There  are  some  feeble,  mean 
natures  which  may  receive  an  endless  number  of  wounds  and 
live  on  ;  but  there  are  some  more  highly  tempered  souls  which 
snap  at  last  under  repeated  blows.     You  have " 

"  Oh  !  enough  !  "  cried  he.  "  No  more  copy  !  Your  dis- 
sertation is  unnecessary,  since  you  can  justify  yourself  by  merely 
saying — '  I  have  ceased  to  love.'  " 

"  What  !  "  she  exclaimed  in  bewilderment.  "Is  it  I  who 
have  ceased  to  love?" 

"Certainly.  You  have  calculated  that  I  gave  you  more 
trouble,  more  vexation  than  pleasure,  and  you  desert  your 
partner " 

"  I  desert ! "  cried  she,  clasping  her  hands. 

"  Have  not  you  yourself  just  said  '  Never  ?  '  " 

"Well,  then,  yes.     Never,''  she  repeated  vehemently. 

This  final  Never,  spoken  in  the  fear  of  falling  once  more 
under  Lousteau's  influence,  was  interpreted  by  him  as  the 
death-warrant  of  his  power,  since  Dinah  remained  insensible 
to  his  sarcastic  scorn. 

The  journalist  could  not  suppress  a  tear.  He  was  losing  a 
sincere  and  unbounded  affection.  He  had  found  in  Dinah  the 
gentlest  la  Valliere,  the  most  delightful  Pompadour  that  any 
egoist  short  of  a  king  could  hope  for  ;  and,  like  a  boy  who  has 
discovered  that  by  dint  of  tormenting  a  cockchafer  he  has 
killed  it,  Lousteau  shed  a  tear. 

Madame  de  La  Baudraye  rushed  out  of  the  private  room 


184  THE  MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT. 

where  they  had  been  dining,  paid  the  bill,  and  fled  home  to 
the  Rue  de  I'Arcade,  scolding  herself  and  thinking  herself  a 
brute. 

Dinah,  who  had  made  her  house  a  model  of  comfort,  now 
metamorphosed  herself.  This  double  metamorphosis  cost 
thirty  thousand  francs  more  than  her  husband  had  antici- 
pated. 

The  fatal  accident  which  in  1842  deprived  the  House  of 
Orleans  of  the  heir-presumptive  having  necessitated  a  meeting 
of  the  Chambers  in  August  of  that  year,  little  La  Baudraye 
came  to  present  his  titles  to  the  Upper  House  sooner  than  he 
had  expected,  and  then  saw  what  his  wife  had  done.  He  was 
so  much  delighted  that  he  paid  the  thirty  thousand  francs 
without  a  word,  just  as  he  had  formerly  paid  eight  thousand 
for  decorating  La  Baudraye. 

On  his  return  from  the  Luxembourg,  where  he  had  been 
presented  according  to  custom  by  two  of  his  peers — the  Baron 
de  Nucingen  and  the  Marquis  de  Montriveau — the  new  count 
met  the  old  Due  de  Chaulieu,  a  former  creditor,  walking 
along,  umbrella  in  hand,  while  he  himself  sat  perched  in  a 
low  chaise  on  which  his  coat-of-arms  was  resplendent,  with 
the  motto,  Deo  sic patei  Jides  et  hemtmbus.  This  contrast  filled 
his  heart  with  a  large  draught  of  the  balm  on  which  the  mid- 
dle-class has  been  getting  drunk  ever  since  1840. 

Madame  de  La  Baudraye  was  shocked  to  see  her  husband 
improved  and  looking  better  than  on  the  day  of  his  marriage. 
The  little  dwarf,  full  of  rapturous  delight,  at  sixty-four  tri- 
umphed in  the  life  which  had  so  long  been  denied  him  ;  in 
the  family,  which  his  handsome  Cousin  Milaud  of  Nevers  had 
declared  he  would  never  have  ;  and  in  his  wife — who  had 
asked  Monsieur  and  Madame  de  Clagny  to  dinner  to  meet  the 
cure  of  the  parish  and  his  two  sponsors  to  the  Chamber  of 
Peers.     He  petted  the  children  with  fatuous  delight. 

The  handsome  display  on  the  table  met  with  his  approval. 


THE   MUSE    OE  THE    DEPARTMENT.  185 

"These  arc  the  fleeces  of  the  Berry  sheep,"  said  he,  show- 
ing Monsieur  de  Nucingen  the  dish-covers  surmounted  by  his 
newly  won  coronet.      "  They  arc  of  silver,  you  see  !  " 

Though  consumed  by  melancholy,  which  she  concealed 
with  the  determination  of  a  really  superior  woman,  Dinah  was 
charming,  witty,  and,  above  all,  young  again  in  her  Court 
mourning. 

"You  might  declare,"  cried  La  Baudraye  to  Monsieur  de 
Nucingen,  with  a  wave  of  his  hand  to  his  wife,  "  that  the 
countess  was  not  yet  thirty." 

"Ah,  ha!  Matame  is  a  voman  of  dirty!"  replied  the 
baron,  who  was  prone  to  time-honored  remarks,  which  he 
took  to  be  the  small  change  of  conversation. 

"  In  every  sense  of  the  words,"  replied  the  countess.  "  I 
am,  in  fact,  five-and-thirty,  and  mean  to  set  up  a  little  pas- 
sion  " 

"  Oh,  yes,  my  wife  ruins  me  in  curiosities  and  china  images 
that " 

"  She  started  that  mania  at  an  early  age,"  said  the  Marquis 
de  Montriveau  with  a  smile. 

"  Yes,"  said  La  Baudraye,  with  a  cold  stare  at  the  marquis, 
whom  he  had  known  at  Bourges,  "you  know  that  in  -25, 
-26,  and  -27  she  picked  up  a  million  francs'  worth  of  treas- 
ures.    Anzy  is  a  perfect  museum." 

"What  a  cool  hand  !  "  thought  Monsieur  de  Clagny,  as  he 
saw  this  little  country  miser  quite  on  the  level  of  his  new 
position. 

But  misers  have  savings  of  all  kinds  ready  for  use. 

On  the  day  after  the  vote  on  the  Regency  had  passed  the 
Chambers,  the  little  count  went  back  to  Sancerre  for  the  vin- 
tage, and  resumed  his  old  habits. 

In  the  course  of  that  winter,  the  Comtesse  de  La  Baudraye, 
with  the  support  of  the  attorney-general  to  the  Court  of  Ap- 
peals, tried  to  form  a  little  circle.  Of  course,  she  had  an 
"at  home"  day,  she  made  a  selection  among  men  of  mark, 

G 


186  THE   MUSE    OF  THE   DEPARTMENT. 

receiving  none  but  those  of  serious  purpose  and  ripe  years. 
She  tried  to  amuse  herself  by  going  to  the  opera,  French  and 
Italian.  Twice  a  week  she  appeared  there  with  her  mother 
and  Madame  de  Clagny,  who  was  made  by  her  husband  to 
visit  Dinah.  Still,  in  spite  of  her  cleverness,  her  charming 
manners,  her  fashionable  stylishness,  she  was  never  really 
happy  but  with  her  children,  on  whom  she  lavished  all  her 
disappointed  affection. 

Worthy  Monsieur  de  Clagny  tried  to  recruit  women  for  the 
countess'  circle,  and  he  succeeded  ;  but  he  was  more  success- 
ful among  the  advoc.     i  of  piety  than  the  women  of  fashion. 

"  And  they  bore  hei  '  "  said  he  to  himself  with  horror,  as 
he  saw  his  idol  matured  oy  grief,  pale  from  remorse,  and  then, 
in  all  the  splendor  of  recovered  beauty,  restored  by  a  life  of 
luxury  and  care  for  her  boys.  This  devoted  friend,  encour- 
aged in  his  efforts  by  her  mother  and  by  the  cure,  was  full  of 
expedient.  Every  Wednesday  he  introduced  some  celebrity 
from  Germany,  England,  Italy,  or  Prussia  to  his  dear  countess  ; 
he  spoke  of  her  as  a  quite  exceptional  woman  to  people  to 
whom  she  hardly  addressed  two  words ;  but  she  listened  to 
them  with  such  deep  attention  that  they  went  away  fully  con- 
vinced of  her  superiority.  In  Paris,  Dinah  conquered  by 
silence,  as  at  Sancerre  she  had  conquered  by  loquacity.  Now 
and  then,  some  smart  saying  about  affairs,  or  sarcasm  on  an 
absurdity,  betrayed  a  woman  accustomed  to  deal  with  ideas — 
the  woman,  who  four  years  since,  had  given  new  life  to  Lous- 
teau's  articles. 

This  phase  was  to  the  poor  lawyer's  hapless  passion  like  the 
late  season  known  as  the  Indian  summer  after  a  sunless  year. 
He  affected  to  be  older  than  he  was,  to  have  the  right  to  be- 
friend Dinah  without  doing  her  an  injury,  and  kept  himself  at 
a  distance  as  though  he  were  young,  handsome,  and  com- 
promising, like  a  man  who  has  happiness  to  conceal.  He 
tried  to  keep  his  little  attentions  a  profound  secret,  and  the 
trifling  gifts  which  Dinah  showed  to  every  one ;  and  he  en- 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT.  187 

deavored  to  suggest  a  dangerous  meaning  for  his  little  ser- 
vices. 

"He  plays  at  passion,"  said  the  countess,  laughing.  She 
made  fun  of  Monsieur  de  Clagny  to  his  face,  and  the  lawyer 
said  :  "  She  notices  me." 

"I  impress  that  poor  man  so  deeply,"  said  she  to  her 
mother,  laughing,  <*  that  if  I  would  say  Yes,  I  believe  he 
would  say  No." 

One  evening  Monsieur  de  Clagny  and  his  wife  were  taking 
his  dear  countess  home  from  the  theatre,  and  she  was  deeply 
pensive.  They  had  been  to  the  first  performance  of  Leon 
Gozlan's  first  play,  "La  Main  Droite  et  la  Main  Gauche" 
(Tlie  Right  Hand  and  the  Left). 

"  What  are  you  thinking  about  ?  "  asked  the  lawyer,  alarmed 
at  his  idol's  dejection. 

This  deep  and  persistent  melancholy,  though  disguised  by 
the  countess,  was  a  perilous  malady  for  which  Monsieur  de 
Clagny  knew  no  remedy ;  for  true  love  is  often  clumsy,  espe- 
cially when  it  is  not  reciprocated.  True  love  takes  its  expres- 
sion from  the  character.  Now,  this  good  man  loved  after  the 
fashion  of  Alceste,  when  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  wanted  to 
be  loved  after  the  manner  of  Philinte.  The  meaner  side  of 
love  can  never  get  on  with  the  misanthrope's  loyalty.  Thus, 
Dinah  had  taken  care  never  to  open  her  heart  to  this  man. 
How  could  she  confess  to  him  that  she  sometimes  regretted 
the  slough  she  had  left  ? 

She  felt  a  void  in  this  fashionable  life;  she  had  no  one  for 
whom  to  dress,  or  whom  to  tell  of  her  successes  and  triumphs. 
Sometimes  the  memory  of  her  wretchedness  came  to  her, 
mingled  with  memories  of  consuming  joys.  She  would  hate 
Lousteau  for  not  taking  any  pains  to  follow  her ;  she  would 
have  liked  to  get  tender  or  furious  letters  from  him. 

Dinah  made  no  reply,  so  Monsieur  de  Clagny  repeated  the 
question,  taking  the  countess'  hand  and  pressing  it  between 
his  own  with  devout  respect. 


188  THE  MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT. 

''Will  you  have  the  right  hand  or  the  left?"  said  she, 
smiling. 

"The  left,"  said  he,  "for  I  suppose  you  mean  the  truth  or 
a  fib." 

"Well,  then,  I  saw  him,"  she  said,  speaking  into  the  law- 
yer's ear.  "  And  as  I  saw  him  looking  so  sad,  so  out  of  heart, 
I  said  to  myself:  '  Has  he  a  cigar?     Has  he  any  money?'  " 

"If  you  wish  for  the  truth,  I  can  tell  it  you,"  said  the 
lawyer.  "  He  Is  living  as  a  husband  with  Fanny  Beaupre. 
You  have  forced  me  to  tell  you  this  secret ;  I  should  never 
have  told  you,  for  you  might  have  suspected  me  perhaps  of  an 
ungenerous  motive." 

Madame  de  La  Baudraye  grasped  his  hand. 

"  Your  husband,"  said  she  to  her  chaperon,  "  is  one  of  the 
rarest  souls !     Ah!   Why " 

She  shrank  into  her  corner,  looking  out  of  the  window,  but 
she  did  not  finish  her  sentence,  of  which  the  lawyer  could 
guess  the  end  :  "Why  had  not  Lousteau  a  little  of  your  hus- 
band's generosity  of  heart?  " 

This  information  served,  however,  to  cure  Dinah  of  her 
melancholy;  she  threw  herself  into  the  whirl  of  fashion.  She 
wished  for  success,  and  she  achieved  it ;  still,  she  did  not 
make  much  way  with  women  and  found  it  difficult  to  get 
introductions. 

In  the  month  of  March,  Madame  Piedefer's  friends  the 
priests  and  Monsieur  de  Clagny  made  a  fine  stroke  by  getting 
Madame  de  La  Baudraye  appointed  receiver  of  subscriptions 
for  the  great  charitable  work  founded  by  Madame  de  Carcado. 
Then  she  was  commissioned  to  collect  from  the  royal  family 
their  donations  for  the  benefit  of  the  sufferers  from  the  earth- 
quake at  Guadeloupe.  The  Marquise  d'Espard,  to  whom 
Monsieur  de  Canalis  read  the  list  of  ladies  thus  appointed, 
one  evening  at  the  Italian  opera,  said,  on  hearing  that  of  the 
countess — 

"I  have  lived  a  long  time  in  the  world,  and  I  can  remem- 


THE  MUSE    OF  THE  DEPARTMENT.  189 

ber  nothing  finer  than   the   manoeuvres  undertaken   for  the 
rehabilitation  of  Madame  de  La  Baudraye." 

In  the  early  spring,  which,  by  some  whim  of  our  planets, 
smiled  on  Paris  in  the  first  week  of  March  in  1843,  making 
the  Champs-Elysees  green  and  leafy  before  Longchamp,  Fanny 
Beaupre's  attache  had  seen  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  several 
times  without  being  seen  by  her.  More  than  once  he  was 
stung  to  the  heart  by  one  of  those  promptings  of  jealousy  and 
envy,  familiar  to  those  who  are  born  and  bred  provincials, 
when  he  beheld  his  former  mistress  comfortably  ensconced  in 
a  handsome  carriage,  well  dressed,  with  dreamy  eyes,  and  his 
two  little  boys,  one  at  each  window.  He  accused  himself 
with  all  the  more  virulence  because  he  was  waging  war  with 
the  sharpest  poverty  of  all — poverty  unconfessed.  Like  all 
essentially  light  and  frivolous  natures,  he  cherished  the  singu- 
lar point  of  honor,  which  consists  in  never  derogating  in  the 
eyes  of  one's  own  little  public,  which  makes  men  on  the 
Bourse  commit  crimes  to  escape  expulsion  from  the  temple  of 
the  goddess  Per-cent.,  and  has  given  some  criminals  courage 
enough  to  perform  acts  of  virtue. 

Lousteau  dined  and  breakfasted  and  smoked  as  if  he  were  a 
rich  man.  Not  for  an  inheritance  would  he  have  bought  anv 
but  the  dearest  cigars,  for  himself  as  well  as  for  the  playwright 
or  author  with  whom  he  went  into  the  store.  The  journalist 
took  his  walks  abroad  in  patent-leather  shoes;  but  he  was 
constantly  afraid  of  an  execution  on  goods  which,  to  use  the 
bailiff's  slang,  had  already  received  the  "last  sacrament." 
Fanny  Beaupre  had  nothing  left  to  pawn,  and  her  salary  was 
pledged  to  pay  her  debts.  After  exhausting  every  possible 
advance  of  pay  from  newspapers,  magazines,  and  ptiblishers, 
Etienne  knew  not  of  what  ink  he  could  churn  gold.  Gamblins;- 
houses,  so  ruthlessly  suppressed,  could  no  longer,  as  of  old, 
cash  I  O  U's  drawn  over  the  green  table  by  beggary  in  despair. 
In  short,  the  journalist  was  reduced  to  such  extremity  that  he 


190  THE   MUSE    OF  THE   DEPARTMENT. 

had  just  borrowed  a  hundred  francs  of  the  poorest  of  his 
friends,  Bixiou,  from  whom  he  had  never  yet  asked  for  a 
franc.  What  distressed  Lousteau  was  not  the  fact  of  owing 
five  thousand  francs,  but  seeing  himself  bereft  of  his  elegance, 
and  of  the  furniture  purchased  at  tlie  cost  of  so  many  priva- 
tions, and  added  to  by  Madame  de  La  Baudraye. 

On  April  the  3d,  a  yellow  poster,  torn  down  by  the  porter 
after  being  displayed  on  the  wall,  announced  the  sale  of  a 
handsome  suite  of  furniture  on  the  following  Saturday,  the 
day  fixed  for  sales  under  legal  authority.  Lousteau  was  taking 
a  walk,  smoking  cigars,  and  seeking  ideas — for,  in  Paris,  ideas 
are  in  the  air,  they  smile  on  you  from  a  street  corner,  they 
splash  up  with  a  spurt  of  mud  from  under  the  wheels  of  a  cab  ! 
Thus  loafing,  he  had  been  seeking  ideas  for  articles  and 
subjects  for  novels  for  a  month  past,  and  had  found  nothing 
but  friends  who  carried  him  off  to  dinner  or  to  the  play,  and 
who  intoxicated  his  woes,  telling  him  that  champagne  would 
inspire  him. 

"Beware,"  said  the  virulent  Bixiou  one  night,  the  man 
who  would  at  the  same  moment  give  a  comrade  a  hundred 
francs  and  stab  him  to  the  heart  with  a  sarcasm,  ''  if  you  go 
to  sleep  drunk  every  night,  you  are  certain  one  day  to  wake 
up  mad." 

On  the  day  before,  the  Friday,  the  unhappy  wretch,  although 
he  was  accustomed  to  poverty,  felt  like  a  man  condemned  to 
death.     Of  old  he  would  have  said : 

"  Well,  the  furniture  is  very  old  ;  I  will  buy  new." 

But  he  was  incapable  now  of  literary  legerdemain.  Pub- 
lishers, undermined  by  piracy,  paid  badly ;  the  newspapers 
made  close  bargains  with  hard-driven  writers,  as  the  opera 
managers  did  with  tenors  that  sang  flat. 

He  walked  on,  his  eye  on  the  crowd,  though  seeing  noth- 
ing, a  cigar  in  his  mouth,  and  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  every 
feature  of  his  face  twitching,  and  an  affected  smile  on  his  lips. 
Then  he  saw  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  go  by  in  a  carriage  \ 


THE   MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT.  191 

she  was  going  to  the  boulevard  by  the  Rue  de  la  Chaussee 
d'Antin  to  drive  in  the  Bois. 

"There  is  nothing  else  left  !  "  said  he  to  himself,  and  he 
went  home  to  smarten  himself  up. 

That  evening,  at  seven,  he  arrived  in  a  hackney-coach  at 
Madame  de  La  Baudraye's  door,  and  begged  the  porter  to 
send  a  note  up  to  the  countess — a  few  lines,  as  follows : 

"Would  Madame  la  Comtesse  do  Monsieur  Lousteau  the 
favor  of  receiving  him  for  a  moment,  and  at  once  !  " 

This  note  was  sealed  with  a  seal  which  as  lovers  they  had 
both  used.  Madame  de  La  Baudraye  had  had  the  word 
Parceqiie  (because)  engraved  on  a  genuine  Oriental  carnelian 
— a  potent  word — a  woman's  word — the  word  that  accounts 
for  everything,  even  for  the  Creation. 

The  countess  had  just  finished  dressing  to  go  to  the  opera; 
Friday  was  her  night  in  turn  for  her  box.  At  the  sight  of 
this  seal  she  turned  pale. 

"I  will  come,"  she  said,  tucking  the  note  into  her  dress. 

She  was  firm  enough  to  conceal  her  agitation,  and  begged 
her  mother  to  see  the  children  put  to  bed.  She  then  sent  for 
Lousteau,  and  received  him  in  a  boudoir,  next  to  the  great 
drawing-room,  with  open  doors.  She  was  going  to  a  ball 
after  the  opera,  and  was  wearing  a  beautiful  dress  of  brocade 
in  stripes  alternately  plain  and  flowered  with  pale  blue.  Her 
gloves,  trimmed  with  tassels,  showed  off  her  beautiful  white 
arms.  She  was  shimmering  with  lace  and  all  the  dainty  trifles 
required  by  fashion.  Her  hair  dressed,  in  the  style  of  Mme. 
de  Sevigne,  gave  her  a  look  of  elegance ;  a  necklace  of  pearls 
lay  on  her  bosom  like  bubbles  on  snow. 

"What  is  the  matter,  monsieur?"  said  the  countess,  put- 
ting out  her  foot  from  below  her  skirt  to  rest  it  on  a  velvet 
cushion.      "I  thought,  I  hoped,  I  was  quite  forgotten." 

"  If  I  should  reply  Never,  you  would  refuse  to  believe  me," 


192  THE   MUSE    OF   THE   DEPARTMENT. 

said  Lousteau,  who  remained  standing,  or  walked  about  the 
room,  chewing  the  flowers  he  plucked  from  the  flower-stands 
full  of  plants  that  scented  the  room. 

For  a  moment  silence  reigned.  Madame  de  La  Baudraye, 
studvins:  Lousteau,  saw  that  he  was  dressed  as  the  most  fas- 
tidious  dandy  might  have  been. 

"You  are  the  only  person  in  the  world  who  can  help  me, 
or  hold  out  a  plank  to  me — for  I  am  drowning,  and  have 

already  swallowed    more    than  one  mouthful "   said   he, 

standing  still  in  front  of  Dinah,  and  seeming  to  yield  to  an 
overpowering  impulse.  "  Since  you  see  me  here,  it  is  because 
my  affairs  are  going  to  the  devil." 

"  That  is  enough,"  said  she  ;   "  I  understand." 

There  was  another  pause,  during  which  Lousteau  turned 
away,  took  out  his  handkerchief,  and  seemed  to  wipe  away  a 
tear. 

"How  much  do  you  want,  Etienne?"  she  went  on  in 
motherly  tones.  "We  are  at  this  moment  old  comrades; 
speak  to  me  as  you  would  to — to  Bixiou." 

"  To  save  my  furniture  from  vanishing  into  thin  air  to- 
morrow morning  at  the  auction  mart,  eighteen  hundred  francs  ! 
To  repay  my  friends,  as  much  again  !  Three  quarters'  rent 
to  the  landlord — whom  you  know.  My  *  uncle '  wants  five 
hundred  francs " 

"  And  you — to  live  on  ?  " 

"  Oh  !  I  have  my  pen- 


"  It  is  heavier  to  lift  than  any  one  could  believe  who  reads 
your  articles,"  said  she,  with  a  subtle  smile.  "I  have  not 
such  a  sum  as  you  need,  but  come  to-morrow  at  eight ;  the 
bailiff  will  surely  wait  till  nine,  especially  if  you  bring  him 
away  to  pay  him," 

She  must,  she  felt,  dismiss  Lousteau,  who  affected  to  be 
unable  to  look  at  her  ;  she  herself  felt  such  pity  as  might  cut 
every  social  Gordian  knot. 

"Thank  you,"  she  added,  rising  and  offering  her  hand  to 


THE   MUSE    OF  THE   DEPARTMENT.  198 

Lousteau.  "  Your  confidence  has  done  me  good  !  It  is  long 
indeed  since  my  heart  has  known  such  joy " 

Lousteau  took  her  hand  and  pressed  it  tenderly  to  his  heart. 

"A  drop  of  water  in  the  desert — and  sent  by  the  hand  of 
an  angel  !     God  always  does  things  handsomely  !  " 

He  spoke  half  in  jest  and  half  pathetically  ;  but,  believe 
me,  as  a  piece  of  acting  it  was  as  fine  as  Talma's  in  his  famous 
part  of  Leicester,  which  was  played  throughout  with  touches 
of  this  kind.  Dinah  felt  his  heart  beating  through  his  coat; 
it  was  throbbing  with  satisfaction,  for  the  journalist  had  had 
a  narrow  escape  from  the  hawks  of  justice  ;  but  it  also  beat 
with  a  very  natural  fire  at  seeing  Dinah  rejuvenescent  and  re- 
stored by  wealth. 

Madame  de  La  Baudraye,  stealing  an  examining  glance  at 
Etienne,  saw  that  his  expression  was  in  harmony  with  the 
flowers  of  love,  which,  as  she  thought,  had  blossomed  again 
in  that  throbbing  heart ;  she  tried  to  look  once  into  the  eyes 
of  the  man  she  had  loved  so  well,  but  the  seething  blood 
rushed  through  her  veins  and  mounted  to  her  brain.  Their 
eyes  met  with  the  same  fiery  glow  as  had  encouraged  Lousteau 
on  the  quay  by  the  Loire  to  crumple  Dinah's  India  muslin 
gown.  The  Bohemian  put  his  arm  round  her  waist,  she 
yielded,  and  their  cheeks  were  touching. 

"  Here  comes  my  mother,  hide  !  "  cried  Dinah  in  alarm. 
And  she  hurried  forward  to  intercept  Madame  Piedefer. 

"  Mamma,"  said  she — this  word  was  to  the  stern  old  lady 
a  coaxing  expression  which  never  failed  of  its  effect — "will 
you  do  me  a  great  favor  ?  Take  the  carriage  and  go  yourself 
to  my  banker,  Monsieur  Mongenod,  with  a  note  I  will  give 
you,  and  bring  back  six  thousand  francs.  Come,  come,  it  is 
an  act  of  charity;  come  into  my  room." 

And  she  dragged  away  her  mother,  who  seemed  very  anxious 
to  see  whom  it  was  that  her  daughter  had  been  talking  with  in 
the  boudoir. 

Two  days  afterward,  Madame  Piedefer  held  a  conference 
13 


194  THE   MUSE    OF   THE  DEPARTMENT. 

with  the  cure  of  the  parish.  After  listening  to  the  lamenta- 
tions of  the  old  mother,  the  priest  said  very  gravely : 

"Any  moral  regeneration  which  is  not  based  on  a  strong 
religious  sentiment,  and  carried  out  in  the  bosom  of  the 
church,  is  built  on  sand.  The  many  means  of  grace  enjoined 
by  the  Catholic  religion,  small  as  they  are,  and  not  under- 
stood, are  so  many  dams  necessary  to  restrain  the  violence  of 
evil  promptings.  Persuade  your  daughter  to  perform  all  her 
religious  duties,  and  we  shall  save  her  yet." 

Within  ten  days  of  this  meeting  the  Hotel  de  La  Baudraye 
was  shut  up.  The  countess,  the  children,  and  her  mother,  in 
short,  the  whole  household,  including  a  tutor,  had  gone  away 
to  Sancerre,  where  Dinah  intended  to  spend  the  summer. 
She  was  everything  that  was  nice  to  the  count,  people  said. 

And  so  the  Muse  of  Sancerre  had  simply  come  back  to 
family  and  married  life ;  but  certain  evil  tongues  declared 
that  she  had  been  compelled  to  come  back,  as  the  little  peer's 
wishes  would  no  doubt  be  fulfilled — he  hoped  for  a  little  girl. 

Gatien  and  Monsieur  Gravier  lavished  every  care,  every 
servile  attention,  on  the  handsome  countess.  Gatien,  who 
during  Madame  de  La  Baudraye's  long  absence  had  been  to 
Paris  to  learn  the  arts  of  lionnerie  or  dandyism,  was  supposed 
to  have  a  good  chance  of  finding  favor  in  the  eyes  of  the  dis- 
enchanted Superior  Woman.  Others  bet  on  the  tutor;  Mad- 
ame Pi^defer  urged  the  claims  of  religion. 

In  1844,  about  the  middle  of  June,  as  the  Comte  de  La 
Baudraye  was  taking  a  walk  on  the  mall  at  Sancerre  with  the 
two  fine  little  boys,  he  met  Monsieur  Milaud,  the  public  pros- 
ecutor, who  was  at  Sancerre  on  business,  and  said  to  him — 

"These  are  my  children,  cousin." 

"  Ah,  ha  !  so  these  are  our  children  !  "  replied  the  lawyer, 
with  a  mischievous  twinkle. 

Vkrxs,,  June,  1843 — August,  1844. 


LKS  EMPLOYES. 

Translated  by  Ellbn   Marriage. 

To   the    Contessa   Serafina   San  Severino,   nde 
Porcia. 

Beirig  obliged  to  read  everything,  in  the  endeavor 
to  repeat  nothiftg,  I  chanced  the  other  day  to 
turn  over  the  pages  of  a  collection  of  three  hundred 
more  or  less  broadly  humorous  tales  written  by  II 
Bandello,  a  sixteenth- century  writer,  but  little  knoiun 
in  France,  whose  works  have  only  lately  been  re- 
tuhlished  in  extenso  in  the  compact  Florentine  edition 
entitled  Raccolta  di  Novellieri  Italiani.  As  I 
glanced  for  the  first  time  through  II  Bandello' s  origi- 
nal text,  your  name,  madame,  and  the  name  of  the 
count,  suddenly  caught  my  eyes,  and  made  so  vivid  an 
impression  upon  my  mind  that  it  seemed  that  I  had 
actually  seen  you.  Then  I  discovered,  not  without 
surprise,  that  every  story,  were  it  but  five  pages  long, 
was  prefaced  by  a  familiar  letter  of  dedication  to  a 
king  or  queen,  or  to  one  of  the  most  illustrious  per- 
sonages of  the  time.  I  saw  the  names  of  noble  houses 
of  Genoa,  Florence,  Milan,  and  II  Bandello' s  native 
Piedmont.  Sforze,  Dorie,  Fregosi,  and  Frascatort ; 
the  Dolcini  of  Mantua,  the  San  Severini  of  Crema, 
the  Visconti  of  Milan,  and  the  Guidoboni  of  Tortona, 
all  appear  in  his  pages  ;  there  is  a  Dante  Alighieri 
{some  one  of  that  name  was  then,  it  seems,  in  exist- 
ence), stories  are  inscribed  to  Queen  Margaret  of 
France,  to  the  Emperor  of  Germany,  the  King  of  Bo- 
hemia, the  Archduke  Maximilian.  There  are  Sauli, 
Medici,  Soderini,   Pallavicini,  and  a  Bentivoglio  of 

(195) 


196  LES  EMPLOYES. 

Bologna  ;  there  are  Scaligeri  and  Colonne  ;  there  is  a 
Spanish  Car  dona  ;  and,  as  for  France,  Anne  de  Po- 
lignac,  Frincesse  de  Marcillac,  and  Comtesse  de  la 
Rochefoucauld,  the  Marignys,  Cardinal  d'  Armagnac, 
and  the  Bishop  of  Cahors — all  the  great  cotnpany 
of  the  time  in  short — are  delighted  and  flattered  by  a 
correspondence  with  Boccaccio  s  successor.  I  saw, 
likewise,  how  much  nobility  there  was  in  II  Bandello' s 
own  character ;  for  while  he  adorns  his  pages  with 
such  illustrious  names  as  these,  he  is  true  to  his  per- 
sonal friendships.  After  the  Signora  Gallerana, 
Countess  of  Bergamo,  comes  the  tiame  of  a  doctor  to 
whom  he  inscribes  his  tale  of 'Komto  e  Giulietta;  after 
the  signora,  molto  magnifica,  Hipolita  Visconti  ed 
Attellana  follows  the  name  of  Livio  Liviana,  a  simple 
captain  of  light  cavalry  ;  a  preacher  succeeds  the  Duke 
of  Orleans,  and  next  in  order  after  one  Riario  you 
find  Messer  magnifico,  Girolamo  Ungaro,  mercante 
Lucchese,  a  virtuous  personage  for  whose  benefit  it  is 
narrated  how  un  gentiluomo  navarese  sposa  una  che 
era  sua  sorella  e  figliuola,  non  lo  sapendo  ;  the  subject 
being  furnished  by  the  Queen  of  Navarre. 

Then  I  thought  that  I,  like  II  Batidello,  might  put 
one  of  my  stories  under  the  protection  of  una  virtuosa, 
gentilissima  illustrissima  Contessa  Serafina  San  Seve- 
rino,  telling  her  truths  that  might  be  taken  for  flat- 
teries. Why  should  I  not  confess  that  I  am  proud  to 
bear  my  testimony  here  and  elsewhere  to  the  fact  that 
fair  and  noble  friendships,  now  as  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  are  and  have  been  the  solace  of  men  of 
letters  wherever  the  fashiofi  of  the  day  tnay  rank 
them  ?  that  in  those  friendships  they  have  ever  found 
consolation  for  slander,  insult,  and  harsh  criticism, 
while  the  app?'oval  of  such  an  audience  enables  them 
to  rise  above  the  cares  and  vexations  of  the  literary 


LES  EMPLOYES.  197 

life  ?  And  because  you  found  such  pleasure  in  the 
menial  activity  of  Paris,  that  brain  of  the  world ; 
because,  with  your  Venetian  subtlety  of  intellect,  you 
understood  it  so  well ;  because  you  loved  Gerard' s 
sutnptuous  salon  {jiow  closed  to  us),  in  which  all  the 
European  celebrities  of  our  quarter  of  the  century 
might  be  seen,  as  we  see  them  in  II  Bandello^ s  pages  ; 
because  the  great  and  dangerous  Siren's  fetes  and 
magical  ceremonies  struck  you  with  wonder,  and  you 
gave  me  your  itnpressions  of  Paris  so  siniply^^or  all 
these  reasons,  surely,  you  will  extend  your  protection 
to  this  picture  of  a  sphere  of  life  which  you  cannot  have 
known,  albeit  it  is  not  lacking  in  character. 

I  could  wish  that  I  had  some  great  poem  to  offer 
instead  to  you  whose  outzvard  form  is  the  visible  ex- 
pression of  all  the  poetry  in  your  heart  and  soul ;  but 
since  a  poor  writer  of  prose  can  only  give  what  he  has, 
the  inadequacy  of  the  offering  may  perhaps  be  re- 
deemed, in  your  eyes,  by  the  respectful  ho?nage  paid  by 
a  deep  and  sincere  adtniratio?i,  such  as  you  can  in- 
spire. 

De  Balzac. 

In  Paris,  where  there  is  a  certain  family  likeness  among 
students  and  thinkers  who  live  under  similar  conditions,  you 
must  have  seen  many  faces  not  unlike  M.  Rabourdin's  at  the 
point  at  which  this  history  takes  up  his  career.  M.  Rabourdin 
at  that  time  was  a  chief  clerk  in  a  most  important  Government 
department.  He  was  a  man  of  forty,  with  hair  of  so  pretty  a 
shade  of  gray,  that  women  really  migiit  love  to  have  it  so ;  it 
was  just  the  tint  that  softens  the  expression  of  a  melancholy 
face.  There  was  plenty  of  light  in  the  blue  eyes  ;  his  com- 
plexion, though  still  fair,  was  sanguine,  and  there  were  little 
patches  of  bright  red  in  it  ;  his  mouth  was  grave  ;  his  nose  and 
forehead  resembled  those   features  in   portraits  of  Louis  XV. 


198  LES  EMPLOYES. 

In  person  he  was  tall  and  spare,  as  thin,  indeed,  as  if  he  had 
but  recently  recovered  from  an  illness;  his  gait  suggested  some- 
thing of  a  lounger's  indolence,  something,  too,  of  the  medi- 
tative mood  of  a  busy  man. 

If  this  portrait  gives  the  man's  character  by  anticipation, 
his  costume  may  contribute  to  set  it  further  in  relief;  Rabour- 
din  invariably  wore  a  long,  blue  overcoat,  a  black  stock,  a 
double-breasted  vest  a  la  Robespierre,  black  trousers  without 
straps,  gray  silk  stockings,  and  low  shoes.  At  eight  every 
morning,  punctual  as  the  clock,  he  sallied  forth  duly  shaven 
and  ballasted  with  a  cup  of  coffee,  and  went,  always  along  the 
same  streets,  to  the  office,  looking  so  prim  and  tidy  that  you 
might  have  taken  him  for  an  Englishman  on  the  way  to  his 
embassy.  By  these  tokens  you  discern  the  father  of  a  family, 
a  man  that  has  little  of  his  own  way  in  his  own  house,  and 
plenty  of  business  cares  to  worry  him  at  the  office ;  and  yet 
withal  sufficient  of  a  philosopher  to  take  life  as  it  is;  an  honest 
man,  loving  and  serving  his  country  without  blinking  the 
difficulties  in  the  way  of  getting  the  right  thing  done;  a  pru- 
dent man,  since  he  knows  something  of  human  nature;  a  man 
whose  manner  to  women  is  exquisitely  polite  because  he  ex- 
pects nothing  of  them.  Lastly,  he  was  a  man  of  very  con- 
siderable attainments,  kindly  to  his  inferiors,  apt  to  keep  his 
equals  at  a  distance,  and  to  stand  on  his  dignity  with  his 
chiefs. 

At  this  period  of  his  life  you  would  have  noticed  that  he 
wore  a  certain  resigned,  indifferent  air ;  he  seemed  to  have 
buried  his  youthful  illusions,  and  renounced  personal  ambi- 
tions ;  certain  signs  indicated  that  though  discouraged  he  had 
not  yet  given  up  his  early  projects  in  disgust,  but  he  persisted 
in  his  work  rather  for  the  sake  of  employing  his  faculties  than 
from  any  hope  of  a  doubtful  triumph.  He  wore  no  "decora- 
tions," and  occasionally  blamed  himself  for  the  weakness  of 
wearing  the  order  of  the  Lily  in  the  early  days  of  the  Restora- 
tion. 


LES  EMPLOYES.  199 

There  were  certain  mysterious  elements  in  Rabourdin's  life. 
His  father  he  had  never  known.  His  mother  had  lived  in 
luxury  and  splendor ;  she  had  a  fine  carriage,  she  was  always 
beautifully  dressed,  her  life  was  a  round  of  gayety;  her  son 
remembered  her  as  a  marvelously  beautiful  and  seldom-seen 
vision.  She  left  him  scarcely  anything  when  she  died ;  but 
she  had  given  him  the  ordinary  imperfect  school  education 
which  develops  great  ambitions  and  little  capacity  for  realizing 
them.  Then  he  left  the  Lycee  Napoleon  only  a  few  days 
before  her  death  to  enter  a  Government  office  as  a  supernu- 
merary at  the  age  of  sixteen.  Some  unknown  influence 
promptly  obtained  the  position  for  him.  At  twenty-two 
Rabourdin  became  senior  clerk;  he  was  chief  clerk  at  twenty- 
five.  After  this,  the  patronage  which  had  brought  the  young 
fellow  thus  far  on  in  life  showed  itself  in  but  one  more  in- 
stance. It  procured  him  an  entrance  to  the  house  of  one  M. 
Leprince,  a  retired  auctioneer,  reputed  to  be  wealthy.  M. 
Leprince  was  a  widower  with  an  only  daughter.  Xavier 
Rabourdin  fell  over  head  and  ears  in  love  with  Mile.  Celestine 
Leprince,  then  aged  seventeen,  and  endowed  (so  it  was  said) 
with  two  hundred  thousand  francs  for  her  portion.  Men  in 
the  highest  position  might  well  turn  their  eyes  in  the  direction 
of  this  young  lady.  A  tall,  handsome  girl  with  an  admirable 
figure,  she  had  inherited  the  gifts  of  an  artist  mother,  who 
brought  her  up  carefully.  Mile.  Leprince  spoke  several  lan- 
guages, and  had  acquired  some  smatterings  of  learning — a 
dangerous  advantage,  which  compels  a  woman  to  be  very  care- 
ful if  she  would  avoid  any  appearance  of  pedantry.  And 
Celestine's  mother,  blinded  by  unwise  tenderness,  had  held 
out  hopes  that  could  not  be  realized  ;  to  hear  her  talk,  nobody 
short  of  a  duke,  an  ambassador,  a  marshal  of  France,  or  a 
cabinet  minister  could  give  her  Celestine  her  rightful  social 
position.  And,  indeed.  Mile.  Leprince's  manners,  language, 
and  ways  were  fitted  for  the  best  society.  Her  dress  was  too 
handsome  and  elegant  for  a  girl  of  her  age ;  a  husband  could 


200  LES  EMPLOYES. 

give  Celestine  nothing  but  happiness.  And,  what  was  more, 
the  mother  (who  died  a  year  after  her  marriage)  had  spoiled 
her  with  such  continual  indulgence,  that  a  lover  had  a  toler- 
ably difficult  part  to  play. 

A  man  had  need  have  plenty  of  courage  to  undertake  such  a 
wife  !  Middle-class  suitors  took  fright  and  retired.  Xavier, 
an  orphan  with  nothing  but  his  salary  as  chief  clerk  in  a 
Government  office,  was  brought  forward  by  M.  Leprince,  but 
for  a  long  time  Celestine  would  not  hear  of  him.  Not  that 
Mile.  Leprince  had  any  objection  to  her  suitor  himself;  he 
was  young,  handsome,  and  very  much  in  love,  but  she  had  no 
mind  to  be  called  Mme.  Rabourdin. 

In  vain  M.  Leprince  told  his  daughter  that  Rabourdin  was 
of  the  stuff  of  which  cabinet  ministers  are  made.  Celestine 
retorted  that  a  man  of  the  name  of  Rabourdin  would  never 
rise  to  be  anything  under  the  Bourbons,  with  much  more  to 
the  same  purpose.  Driven  thus  from  his  intrenchments,  her 
parent  was  guilty  of  a  grave  indiscretion  ;  he  hinted  to  Celes- 
tine that  her  suitor  would  be  Rabourdin  de  somewhere  or  other 
before  he  could  reach  the  age  that  qualifies  for  the  Chamber. 
Xavier  was  sure  to  be  a  master  of  requests  before  very  long, 
and  secretary-general  of  his  department.  After  those  two 
steps,  the  young  fellow  would  be  launched  into  the  upper  re- 
gions of  the  administration  some  day;  beside,  Rabourdin 
would  inherit  a  fortune  and  a  name  by  a  certain  will,  as  he 
(Leprince)  knew  of  his  own  knowledge.  The  marriage  took 
place. 

Rabourdin  and  his  wife  believed  in  the  mysterious  power 
discovered  to  them  by  the  old  auctioneer.  Hope  and  the  im- 
providence counseled  by  love  in  the  early  days  of  married  life 
led  the  young  couple  into  expense ;  and  in  five  years  M.  and 
Mme.  Rabourdin  had  spent  nearly  a  hundred  thousand  francs 
of  their  principal.  Celestine  not  unreasonably  took  alarm  when 
promotion  did  not  come,  and  it  was  by  her  wish  that  the  re- 
maining hundred  thousand  francs  of  her  portion  were  put  into 


LES  EMPLOYES.  201 

land.  The  investment  only  paid  a  very  low  interest ;  but 
then  some  day  or  other  old  M.  Leprince  would  leave  his 
money  to  them,  and  their  prudent  self-denial  would  receive 
the  reward  of  a  pleasant  competence. 

But  old  M.  Leprince  saw  that  his  son-in-law  had  lost  his 
interest,  and  tried,  for  his  daughter's  sake,  to  repair  the  secret 
check.  He  risked  a  part  of  his  capital  in  a  very  promising 
speculation  ;  but  the  poor  man  became  involved  in  one  of  the 
liquidations  of  the  firm  of  Nucingen,  and  worried  over  his 
losses  until  he  died,  leaving  nothing  behind  him  but  some  ten 
fine  pictures  which  adorned  his  daughter's  drawing-room,  and 
a  little  old-fashioned  furniture  which  she  consigned  to  the 
attics. 

After  eight  years  of  vain  expectation,  Mme.  Rabourdin  at 
last  grasped  the  idea  that  her  husband's  fatherly  providence 
must  have  died  suddenly,  and  that  the  will  had  been  mislaid 
or  suppressed.  Two  years  before  Leprince's  death,  when  the 
place  of  the  head  of  the  division  fell  vacant,  it  was  given  to 
one  M,  de  la  Billardi^re,  a  relative  of  a  deputy  of  the  Right, 
who  became  a  member  of  the  Government  in  1823.  It  was 
enough  to  drive  a  man  to  resign.  But  how  could  Rabourdin 
give  up  a  salary  of  eight  thousand  francs  (to  say  nothing  of  an 
occasional  bonus)  when  he  was  living  up  to  his  income,  and 
three-fourths  of  it  came  from  this  source  ?  Beside,  would  he 
not  have  a  right  to  a  pension  after  a  few  years  of  patience  ? 
But  what  a  fall  was  this  for  a  woman  whose  high  pretensions 
at  the  outset  were  almost  justifiable,  a  woman  who  was  sup- 
l)Osed  to  be  destined  for  great  things  ! 

Mme.  Rabourdin  fulfilled  the  promise  of  Mile.  Leprince. 
She  possessed  the  elements  of  an  apparent  superiority  which 
pleases  in  society ;  her  great  acquirements  enabled  her  to 
speak  to  every  one  in  his  own  language.  And  her  ability  was 
genuine  ;  she  had  an  independent  mind  of  no  common  order ; 
her  conversation  was  as  charming  for  its  variety  as  for  the 
originality  of  her  ideas.     Such  qualities  would  have  shone  to 


202  LES  EMPLOYES. 

axlvantage  and  profit  in  a  queen  or  an  ambassadress  ;  they 
were  worth  little  in  the  inevitably  humdrum  routine  of 
domestic  life.  If  people  talk  well,  they  are  apt  to  want  an 
audience ;  they  like  to  talk  at  length,  and  sometimes  they 
grow  wearisome.  To  satisfy  her  intellectual  cravings,  Mme. 
Rabourdin  received  her  friends  one  day  in  the  week,  and  went 
a  good  deal  into  society,  for  the  sake  of  the  admiration  to 
which  she  was  accustomed. 

Those  who  know  life  in  Paris  will  understand  what  a  woman 
of  this  stamp  must  suffer  when  she  continually  feels  the  pinch 
of  straitened  means  at  home.  In  spite  of  all  the  senseless 
rhetorical  abuse  of  money,  you  must  take  your  stand,  if  you 
live  in  Paris,  at  the  foot  of  a  column  of  figures ;  you  must 
bow  down  before  arithmetic,  and  kiss  the  cloven  foot  of  the 
Golden  Calf. 

Given  an  income  of  twelve  thousand  francs  a  year,  to  meet 
all  the  expenses  of  a  household  consisting  of  father,  mother, 
and  two  children,  with  a  housemaid  and  a  cook,  and  to  live 
on  a  second-floor  flat  in  the  Rue  Duphot  at  a  rent  of  a  hundred 
louis — what  a  problem  was  this  !  Before  you  begin  to  estimate 
the  gross  expenditure  of  the  house,  you  must  deduct  the  wife's 
expenses  for  dress  and  hired  carriages  (for  dress  is  the  first 
thing  to  consider);  then  see  how  much  remains  to  pay  for  the 
education  of  two  children  (a  girl  of  seven  and  a  boy  of 
nine,  who  already  cost  two  thousand  francs,  in  spite  of  a  free 
scholarship),  and  you  will  find  that  Mme.  Rabourdin  could 
barely  allow  her  husband  thirty  francs  a  month.  Most  mar- 
ried men  in  Paris  are,  in  fact,  in  the  same  predicament  if  they 
do  not  wish  to  be  thought  monsters  of  cruelty. 

And  so  it  had  come  to  pass  that  the  woman  who  believed 
that  she  was  born  to  shine  as  one  of  the  queens  of  society  was 
obliged  to  exert  her  intellect  and  all  her  powers  in  a  sordid 
struggle  for  which  she  was  quite  unprepared — a  daily  wrestling- 
match  with  account  books.  And  even  so  there  had  been 
bitter  mortifications  to  suffer.     She  had  dismissed  her  man- 


LES  LMPLOY&S.  203 

servant  after  her  father's  death.  Most  women  grow  weary  of 
the  daily  strain.  They  grumble  for  a  while,  and  then  yield 
to  their  fate  ;  but  Celestine's  ambition,  so  far  from  declining, 
was  only  increased  by  the  difficulties.  If  she  could  not  over- 
come obstacles,  she  would  clear  them  from  her  path.  Such 
complications  in  the  machinery  of  existence  ought  to  be 
abolished;  and  if  the  Gordian  knot  could  not  be  untied, 
genius  should  cut  it.  So  far  from  accepting  the  shabby  lot  of 
the  lower  middle-class  housewife,  Celestine  grew  impatient 
because  her  great  future  career  was  delayed.  Fate  had  not 
done  fairly  by  her,  she  thought. 

For  Celestine  honestly  believed  that  she  was  meant  for 
great  things.  And  perhaps  she  was  right.  Perhaps  in  great 
circumstances  she  might  have  shown  herself  great.  Perhaps 
she  was  not  in  her  place.  Let  us  admit  that  among  women, 
as  among  men,  there  are  certain  types  that  can  mould  society 
to  their  own  wish.  But  as,  in  the  natural  world,  not  every 
young  sapling  shoots  up  into  a  tree,  and  small  fry  are  more 
numerous  than  full-grown  fish,  so,  in  the  artificial  world  called 
society,  many  a  human  creature  who  might  have  done  great 
things,  many  an  Athanase  Granson,*  is  doomed  to  perish  un- 
developed like  the  seeds  that  fall  on  stony  ground.  Of  course 
there  are  domesticated  women,  agreeable  women,  and  costly 
feminine  works  of  art ;  there  are  women  born  to  be  mothers, 
wives,  or  mistresses ;  there  are  wholly  intellectual  and  wholly 
material  women  ;  even  as  among  men  there  are  soldiers,  artists, 
craftsmen,  mathematicians,  merchants,  poets,  and  men  who 
understand  nothing  beyond  money-making,  agriculture,  or 
public  business.  And  then  the  irony  of  fate  comes  in  and 
works  strange  contradictions  ;  many  are  called,  but  few  chosen, 
and  the  law  of  spiritual  election  holds  equally  good  in  worldly 
concerns. 

Mme.  Rabourdin,  in  her  own  opinion,  was  eminently  fitted 
to  counsel  a  statesman,  to  kindle  an  artist's  soul,  to  further 
*  See  "  Jealousies  of  a  Country  Town." 


204  LES  EMPLOYES. 

the  interests  of  an  inventor  and  to  help  him  in  his  struggles, 
or  to  devote  herself  to  the  half-political,  half-financial  schemes 
of  a  Nucingen,  and  to  make  a  brilliant  figure  with  a  large 
fortune.  Perhaps  this  was  how  she  tried  to  account  to  her- 
self for  the  disgust  that  she  felt  for  laundress'  bills,  for  the 
daily  schemes  of  kitchen  expenditure  and  the  little  economies 
and  cares  of  a  small  establishment.  In  the  life  that  she  liked 
she  took  a  high  place.  And  since  she  was  keenly  sensitive  to 
the  prickings  of  the  thorns  in  a  lot  which  might  be  compared 
with  the  position  of  St.  Lawrence  upon  a  gridiron,  some  out- 
cry surely  was  only  to  be  expected  of  her.  And  so  it  befell 
that  in  paroxysms  of  thwarted  ambition,  during  sharp  throbs 
of  pain,  given  by  wounded  vanity,  Celestine  threw  the  blame 
upon  Xavier  Rabourdin.  Was  it  not  incumbent  upon  her 
husband  to  give  her  a  suitable  position?  If  she  had  been  a 
man,  she  certainly  would  have  had  energy  enough  to  realize  a 
fortune  quickly  and  make  a  much-loved  wife  happy.  He  was 
"too  honest,"  she  said;  and  this  reproach  in  the  mouths  of 
some  women  is  a  good  as  a  certificate  of  idiocy. 

Celestine  would  sketch  out  magnificent  plans  for  him,  ignor- 
ing all  the  practical  difficulties  put  in  the  way  by  men  and 
circumstances ;  and,  after  the  manner  of  women  when  under 
the  influence  of  intense  feeling,  she  became,  in  theory,  more 
Machiavellian  than  a  Gondreville,  and  Maxime  de  Trailles 
himself  was  hardly  such  a  scoundrel.  At  such  times  Celes- 
tine's  imagination  conceived  all  possibilities;  she  saw  herself 
in  the  whole  extent  of  her  ideas.  Rabourdin,  meanwhile, 
with  his  practical  experience,  was  unmoved  from  the  outset 
by  these  glorious  dreams.  And  Celestine,  somewhat  dashed, 
came  to  the  conclusion  that  her  husband  was  a  narrow-minded 
man,  whose  views  were  neither  bold  enough  nor  comprehon- 
sive  enough.  Unconsciously  she  began  to  form  an  utterly 
false  idea  of  her  companion  in  life.  She  snuffed  him  out  con- 
tinually, to  begin  with,  by  her  brilliant  arguments;  and  when 
he  began   to  explain   matters  to  her,  she  was  apt  to  cut  him 


LES  EMPLOYES.  205 

short.  Her  own  ideas  were  wont  to  occur  to  her  in  flashes, 
and  she  was  afraid  to  lose  the  spark  of  wit. 

She  had  known  from  the  very  first  days  of  their  married 
life  that  Rabourdin  admired  and  loved  her;  and  therefore 
she  treated  him  with  careless  security.  She  set  herself  above 
all  the  laws  of  married  life  and  the  courtesies  of  familiarity, 
leaving  all  her  little  shortcomings  to  be  pardoned  in  the  name 
of  Love ;  and  as  she  never  corrected  herself,  she  always  had 
her  way.  A  man  in  this  position  is,  as  it  were,  confronting 
a  schoolmaster  who  cannot  or  will  not  believe  that  the  boy 
whom  he  used  to  keep  in  order  has  grown  up.  As  Mme.  de 
Stael  once  received  a  remark  made  by  a  ''greater  man  "  than 
herself,  by  exclaiming  before  a  whole  roomful  of  people : 
"  Do  you  know  that  you  have  just  said  something  very  pro- 
found ?  "  so  Mme.  Rabourdin  would  say  of  her  husband: 
"There  is  sometimes  sense  in  wliat  he  says!"  Gradually 
her  opinion  of  Xavier  began  to  show  itself  in  little  ways. 
There  was  a  lack  of  respect  in  her  manner  and  attitude  toward 
him.  And  all  unconsciously  she  lowered  him  in  the  eyes  of 
others,  for  everybody  all  the  world  over  takes  a  wife's  estimate 
into  account  in  forming  an  opinion  of  a  man  ;  it  is  the  uni- 
versal rule  in  taking  a  precognition  of  character;  un preavis, 
as  the  Genevese  say,  or,  to  be  more  accurate,  un  preavisse. 

When  Rabourdin  saw  the  mistake  that  he  had  made  through 
love,  it  was  too  late.  The  bent  had  been  taken  ;  he  suffered 
in  silence.  In  some  rare  natures  the  power  to  feel  is  as  great 
as  the  power  of  thought,  a  great  soul  supplements  a  highly 
organized  brain  ;  and,  after  the  manner  of  these,  Rabourdin 
was  his  wife's  advocate  at  the  bar  of  his  judgment.  Nature 
(he  told  liimself)  had  given  her  a  role  to  play;  it  was  entirely 
by  his  fault  that  she  had  been  cheated  of  her  part.  She  was 
like  a  thorouglibred  racer  harnessed  to  a  cart  full  of  flints — 
she  was  not  happy.  He  took  the  blame  upon  himself,  in  short. 
His  wife  had  inoculated  him  with  her  belief  in  herself  by  dint 
of  repeating  the  same  things  over  and  over  again.     Ideas  are 


206  LES  EMPLOYES. 

infectious  in  family  life.  The  9th  Thermidor,  like  many 
other  portentous  events,  was  brought  about  by  feminine  in- 
fluence. 

Urged  on  in  this  way  by  Celestine's  ambition,  Rabourdin 
had  long  been  meditating  how  to  satisfy  it ;  but  he  hid  his 
hopes  from  her  to  save  her  the  torment  of  suspense.  He  had 
made  up  his  mind,  good  man  that  he  was,  to  make  his  way 
upward  in  the  administration  by  knocking  a  very  considerable 
hole  in  it.  He  wanted,  in  the  first  place,  to  bring  about  a 
revolution  in  the  civil  service,  a  radical  reform  of  a  kind  that 
puts  a  man  at  the  head  of  some  section  of  society ;  but  as  he 
was  incapable  of  scheming  a  general  overturn  for  his  {^articular 
benefit,  he  was  revolving  projects  of  reform  in  his  own  mind 
and  dreaming  of  a  triumph  to  be  nobly  won.  The  idea  was 
both  generous  and  ambitious.  Perhaps  few  employes  have 
not  thought  of  such  plans  ;  but  among  officials,  as  among 
artists,  there  are  many  abortive  designs  for  one  that  sees  the 
light.  Which  saying  brings  us  back  to  Buffon's  apophthegm : 
"  Genius  is  patience." 

Rabourdin's  position  enabled  him  to  study  the  French  ad- 
ministrative system  and  to  watch  its  working.  Chance  set  his 
speculative  faculties  moving  in  the  sphere  of  his  practical 
experience  (this,  by  the  way,  is  the  secret  of  many  a  man's 
achievements),  and  Rabourdin  invented  a  new  system  of  ad- 
ministration. Knowing  the  men  with  whom  he  had  to  do, 
he  respected  the  machinery  then  in  existence,  still  in  exist- 
ence, and  likely  to  remain  in  existence  for  a  long  while  to 
come,  every  generation  being  scared  by  the  thought  of  recon- 
struction ;  but  while  Rabourdin  respected  the  mechanism  as 
a  whole,  nobody,  he  thought,  could  refuse  to  simplify  it. 

How  to  employ  the  same  energy  to  better  purpose — here, 
to  his  thinking,  lay  the  problem.  Reduced  to  its  simplest 
expression,  his  plan  consisted  in  redistributing  the  burden  of 
taxation  in  such  a  way  that  it  should  fall  less  heavily  on  the 
nation,  while  there  should  be  no  falling  off"  in  the  revenues  of 


LES  EMPLOYES.  207 

the  State  ;  and,  furthermore,  in  those  days  when  the  budget 
provoked  such  frantic  discussion,  he  meant  to  make  the  un- 
diminished national  income  go  twice  as  far  as  before. 

Long  practical  experience  had  made  it  clear  to  Rabourdin 
that  perfection  is  gradually  attained  by  a  succession  of  simple 
modifications.  Economy  is  simplification.  If  you  simplify, 
you  dispense  with  a  superfluous  wheel ;  and,  consequently, 
something  must  go.  His  system,  therefore,  involved  changes 
which  found  expression  in  a  new  administrative  nomenclature. 
Herein,  probably,  you  may  find  the  reason  of  the  unpopularity 
of  the  innovator.  Necessary  suppressions  are  taken  amiss 
from  the  outset ;  they  threaten  a  class  which  does  not  readily 
adapt  itself  to  a  change  of  environment.  Rabourdin's  real 
greatness  lay  in  this — he  restrained  the  inventor's  enthusiasm, 
while  he  sought  patiently  to  gear  one  measure  into  another  so 
as  to  avoid  unnecessary  friction,  and  left  time  and  experience 
to  demonstrate  the  excellence  of  each  successive  modification. 
This  idea  of  the  gradual  nature  of  the  change  must  not  be  lost 
sight  of  in  a  rapid  survey  of  the  system,  or  it  will  seem  impos- 
sible to  bring  about  so  great  a  result.  It  is  worth  while, 
therefore,  incomplete  as  Rabourdin's  disclosures  were,  to 
indicate  the  starting-point  from  which  he  meant  to  embrace 
the  whole  administrative  horizon.  The  account  of  his  scheme, 
moreover,  brings  us  to  the  very  core  of  the  intrigues  of  which 
it  was  the  cause,  and  may  throw  a  light  beside  upon  some 
present-day  evils. 

Rabourdin  had  been  deeply  impressed  by  the  hardships  of 
the  lives  of  subordinate  officials.  He  asked  himself  why  they 
were  falling  into  discredit.  He  searched  into  the  causes  of 
their  decline,  and  found  them  in  the  little  semi-revolutions, 
the  back  eddies,  as  it  were,  of  the  great  storm  of  1789.  His- 
torians of  great  social  movements  have  never  examined  into 
these,  though,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  they  made  our  manners  and 
customs  what  they  are. 

In  former  times,  under  the  monarchy,  armies  of  officials  did 


208  LES  EMPLOYES. 

not  exist.  They  were  then  few  in  nunaber  and  under  the 
direct  control  of  a  prime  minister,  who  was  always  in  com- 
munication with  the  crown.  In  this  way  the  official  staff 
might  be  said  to  serve  the  King  almost  directly.  The  chiefs 
of  these  zealous  servitors  were  simply  plain  premiers  commis — 
first  clerks.  In  all  departments  not  under  his  majesty's  direct 
control — such  as  the  taxes,  for  instance — the  staff  were  to 
their  chiefs  pretty  much  as  the  clerks  in  a  counting-house  are 
to  their  employer ;  they  were  receiving  a  training  which  was 
to  put  them  in  the  way  of  getting  on  in  life.  In  this  way 
every  point  in  the  official  circumference  was  in  close  connec- 
tion with  the  centre,  and  received  its  impetus  therefrom. 
Consequently,  there  was  devotion  on  one  side  and  trust  on 
the  other  in  those  days. 

Since  1789  the  State,  or,  if  you  like  to  have  it  so,  the 
Country,  has  taken  the  place  of  the  sovereign.  The  clerks  no 
longer  take  their  instructions  directly  from  one  of  the  first 
magistrates  in  the  realm.  In  our  day,  in  spite  of  our  fine  ideas 
of  La  Patrie,  they  are  government  employes,  while  their  chiefs 
are  drifted  hither  and  thither  by  every  wind  that  blows  from 
a  quarter  known  as  the  ministry,  and  the  ministry  cannot  tell 
to-day  whether  to-morrow  will  find  it  in  existence.  As  rou- 
tine business  must  always  be  dispatched,  there  is  always  a 
fluctuating  number  of  supernumeraries  who  cannot  be  dis- 
pensed with,  and  yet  are  liable  to  dismissal  at  a  moment's 
notice.  All  of  these  naturally  are  anxious  to  be  "  established 
clerks."  And  thus  bureaucracy,  the  giant  power  wielded  by 
pigmies,  came  into  the  world.  Possibly  Napoleon  retarded 
its  influence  for  a  time,  for  all  things  and  all  men  were  forced 
to  bend  to  his  will ;  but  none  the  less  the  heavy  curtain  of 
bureaucracy  was  drawn  between  the  right  thing  to  be  done 
and  the  right  man  to  do  it.  Bureaucracy  was  definitely  or- 
ganized, however,  under  a  constitutional  government  with  a 
natural  kindness  for  mediocrity,  a  predilection  for  categorical 
statements  and  reports,  a  government  as  fussy  and  meddle- 


LES  EMPLOYES.  209 

some,  in  short,  as  a  small  storekeeper's  wife.  Cabinet  minis- 
ters' lives  became  a  continual  struggle  with  some  four  hundred 
petty  minds  led  by  a  dozen  or  so  of  restless  and  intriguing 
spirits.  It  was  a  delightful  spectacle  for  the  rank  and  file  of 
the  service.  They  hastened  to  make  themselves  indispensable, 
hampering  energy  with  documents,  thereby  creating  a  vis  in- 
€rti(z,  styled  the  Report.     Let  us  explain  the  Report : 

When  kings  had  ministers,  and  they  only  began  this  prac- 
tice under  Louis  XV.,  they  were  wont  to  have  a  report  drawn 
up  on  all  important  questions,  instead  of  taking  counsel  as 
before  with  the  great  men  of  the  realm.  Imperceptibly, 
ministers  were  compelled  by  their  understrappers  to  follow 
the  royal  example.  They  were  so  busy  holding  their  own 
in  the  two  Chambers  or  at  Court,  that  they  allowed  them- 
selves to  be  guided  by  the  leading-string  of  the  Report.  If 
anything  of  consequence  came  up  in  the  administration,  the 
minister  had  but  one  answer  to  the  most  pressing  question — 
"  I  have  asked  for  a  report."  In  this  way  the  Report  became 
for  men  in  office,  and  in  public  business  generally,  pretty  much 
what  it  is  for  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  and  the  Legislature,  a 
sort  of  consultation,  in  the  course  of  which  the  reasons  for  and 
against  a  measure  are  set  forth  with  more  or  less  impartiality. 
The  minister,  like  the  Chamber,  after  reading  it,  is  very  much 
where  he  was  before. 

Any  kind  of  decision  must  need  be  made  instantaneously. 
Whatever  the  preliminary  process,  the  moment  comes  when 
you  must  make  up  your  mind,  and  the  bigger  the  array  of  argu- 
ments, the  harder  it  is  to  come  by  a  wise  decision.  The 
greatest  deeds  were  done  in  France  before  reports  were  in- 
vented and  decisions  were  made  out  of  hand.  The  supreme 
rule  for  statesman,  lawyer,  or  physician  is  the  same — he  must 
adopt  a  definite  formula  to  suit  each  individual  case.  Ra- 
bourdin,  who  thought  within  himself  that  "  a  minister  is  there 
to  give  decisions,  to  understand  public  business,  and  to  dis- 
patch it,"  beheld  the  report  carrying  all  before  it,  from  the 
14 


210  LES  EMPLOYES. 

colonel  to  the  marshal,  from  the  commissary  of  police  to  the 
King,  from  the  prefect  to  the  cabinet  minister,  from  the 
Chamber  to  the  police  courts. 

Since  1808  everything  had  been  on  its  trial;  everything 
was  weighed  and  pondered  in  conversation,  books,  and  news- 
papers, and  every  discussion  took  literary  shape.  France  was 
making  dissertations  instead  of  acting,  and  came  to  the  brink 
of  ruin  in  spite  of  these  fine  reports.  A  million  of  them  would 
be  drawn  up  in  a  year  in  those  days  !  Wherefore  bureau- 
cracy got  the  upper  hand.  Portfolios,  letter-files,  waste-paper 
documents,  and  vouchers,  without  which  France  would  be  lost, 
and  circulars  which  she  could  not  do  without,  increased  and 
multiplied  and  waxed  imposing.  Bureaucracy  for  its  own  ends 
fomented  the  ill-feeling  between  the  receipts  and  expenditure, 
and  calumniated  the  administration  for  the  benefit  of  the  ad- 
ministrator. Bureaucracy  devised  the  Lilliputian  threads 
which  chain  France  to  Parisian  centralization  ;  as  if  from  1500 
to  iSoo  France  had  managed  to  do  nothing  without  thirty 
thousand  government  clerks  !  And  no  sooner  had  the  official 
fastened  on  the  government  as  mistletoe  takes  root  on  a  pear- 
tree,  than  he  ceased  to  take  any  interest  in  his  work,  and  for 
the  following  reasons : 

The  princes  and  the  Chambers  compelled  the  ministers  to 
take  their  share  of  responsibility  in  the  budget,  by  insisting 
that  their  names  and  the  amounts  of  salaries  paid  by  and  to 
them  should  appear  in  detail  therein.  They  were  likewise 
obliged  to  keep  a  staff  of  clerks.  Therefore,  they  decreased 
the  salaries,  while  they  increased  the  number  of  clerks,  in  the 
behef  that  a  government  is  so  much  the  stronger  for  the  number 
of  people  in  its  employ.  The  exact  converse  of  this  is  an 
axiom  written  large  for  all  eyes  to  see.  The  amount  of  energy 
secured  varies  inversely  with  the  number  of  agents.  The 
Ministerialism  of  the  Restoration  made  a  mistake,  as  tlie  event 
proved,  in  July,  1830.  If  a  government  is  to  be  firmly  rooted 
in  the  heart  of  the  nation,  it  must  be,  not  by  attaching  indi- 


LES  EMPLOYES.  211 

viduals,  but   by  identifying  itself  with   the  interests  of  the 
country. 

The  official  class  was  led  to  despise  the  government  which 
curtailed  their  salaries  and  lowered  their  social  position  ;  in 
retaliation  they  behaved  as  a  courtesan  behaves  with  an  elderly 
adorer.  They  gave  the  crown  an  adequate  return  for  their 
salaries.  If  the  government  and  those  in  its  employ  had 
dared  to  feel  each  other's  pulses;  if  the  big  salaries  had  not 
stifled  the  voices  of  the  little  ones,  the  situation  would  have 
been  recognized  as  equally  intolerable  on  either  side.  An 
official  gave  his  whole  mind  to  making  a  living;  to  draw  a 
salary  till  he  could  reach  a  pension  was  his  one  object  j  and  to 
attain  that  great  result,  anything  (in  his  opinion)  was  permis- 
sible. Such  a  state  of  things  made  a  serf  of  a  clerk  ;  it  was  a 
source  of  never-ending  intrigues  in  the  departments;  and,  to 
make  matters  worse,  a  degenerate  aristocracy  tried  to  find 
pasture  on  the  bourgeois  common  lands,  using  all  its  influence 
to  get  the  best  places  for  spendthrift  sons  ;  and  with  these  the 
poor  civil  servant  was  obliged  to  compete.  A  really  able  man 
is  hardly  likely  to  try  to  make  his  way  in  these  tortuous  mazes  ; 
he  will  not  cringe  and  wriggle  and  crawl  through  muddy  by- 
paths, where  the  appearance  of  a  man  of  brains  creates  a  gen- 
eral scare.  An  ambitious  man  of  genius  may  grow  old  in  the 
efl"ort  to  reach  the  triple  tiara,  but  he  will  not  follow  in  the 
footsteps  of  a  Sixtus  V.,  to  be  a  chief  clerk  for  his  pains.  If  a 
man  came  into  the  department  and  stopped  there,  he  was 
either  indolent  or  incompetent,  or  excessively  simple. 

And  so,  by  degrees,  the  administration  was  reduced  to  a 
dead-level  of  mediocrity,  and  an  official  hierarchy  of  petty 
minds  became  a  standing  obstruction  in  the  way  of  national 
prosperity.  A  project  for  a  canal,  which  would  have  de- 
veloped the  industries  of  a  province,  might  lie  in  a  pigeon- 
hole for  seven  years.  Bureaucracy  shirked  every  question, 
protracted  delays,  and  perpetuated  abuses  the  better  to  pro- 
tract and  perpetuate  its  own  existence.     Every  one,  even  to 


212  LES  EMPLOYES. 

the  minister  in  office,  was  kept  in  leading  strings;  and  if  any 
man  of  ability  was  rash  enough  to  try  to  do  without  bureau- 
cracy, or  to  turn  the  light  upon  its  blunders,  he  was  inconti- 
nently snuffed  out.  The  list  of  pensions  had  just  been  pub- 
lished, Rabourdin  discovered  that  a  retired  office  messenger 
was  drawing  a  larger  sum  from  the  Government  than  many  a 
disabled  colonel.  The  history  of  bureaucracy  might  be  read 
at  large  in  the  pension  list. 

Rabourdin  attributed  the  lurking  demoralization  in  part  to 
another  evil,  which  has  its  roots  in  our  modern  manners ; 
there  is  no  real  subordination  in  the  service.  A  complete 
equality  prevails  from  the  head  of  the  division  to  the  lowest 
copying  clerk;  and  one  man  is  as  good  as  another  in  the 
arena,  though  when  he  leaves  it,  he  takes  a  high  place  outside. 
A  poet,  an  artist,  and  an  ordinary  clerk  are  all  alike  employes  ; 
they  make  no  distinctions  among  themselves.  Education  dis- 
pensed indiscriminately  brings  about  the  natural  results.  Does 
not  the  son  of  a  minister's  hall-porter  decide  the  fate  of  a 
great  man  or  some  landed  proprietor  for  whom  his  father  used  to 
open  the  door?  The  latest  comer  therefore  can  compete  with 
the  oldest.  A  wealthy  supernumerary  driving  to  Longchamp 
in  his  tilbury,  with  a  pretty  woman  by  his  side,  points  out  the 
head  of  his  office  to  his  companion  with  his  whip:  ''There 
goes  my  chief!  "  he  says,  and  his  wheels  splash  the  poor 
father  of  a  family  who  must  go  on  foot  through  the  streets. 

The  Liberals  call  this  sort  of  thing  Progress ;  Rabourdin 
looked  upon  it  as  Anarchy  in  the  core  of  the  administration. 
Did  he  not  see  the  results  of  it  ? — the  restless  intriguing  as  of 
women  and  eunuchs  in  the  harem  of  an  effete  sultan,  the  pet- 
tiness of  bigots,  the  underhand  spite,  the  schoolboy  tyranny, 
the  feats  on  a  level  with  the  tricks  of  performing  fleas,  the 
slave's  petty  revenges  taken  on  the  minister  himself,  the  toil 
and  diplomacy  from  which  an  ambassador  would  shrink  dis- 
mayed— and  all  undertaken  to  gain  a  bonus  or  an  increase  of 
salary  ?     And  meanwhile  the  men  who  really  did  the  work, 


LES  EMPLOYES.  213 

the  few  whose  devotion  to  their  country  stood  out  in  strong 
contrast  against  the  background  of  incompetence — these  were 
the  victims  of  parasites,  these  were  forced  out  of  the  field  by 
sordid  trickery.  As  all  high  places  were  no  longer  in  the  gift 
of  the  crown,  but  went  by  interest  in  parliament,  officials  were 
certain,  sooner  or  later,  to  become  wheels  in  the  machinery 
of  government ;  they  would  be  kept  more  or  less  abundantly 
greased,  and  that  was  all  they  cared  about.  This  fatal  con- 
viction had  already  been  brought  home  to  many  a  good 
worker ;  it  had  suppressed  many  a  memorial  conscientiously 
undertaken  from  a  sense  of  deep-seated  evils  ;  it  was  disheart- 
ening many  a  brave  man  and  corroding  the  most  vigorous 
honesty;  the  better  sort  were  growing  weary  of  injustice; 
drudgery  left  them  listless,  and  they  ceased  to  care. 

A  single  one  of  Rothschild's  clerks  manages  the  whole  of 
the  English  correspondence  of  the  firm  ;  a  single  man  in  a 
government  ofiice  could  undertake  the  whole  of  the  corre- 
spondence with  the  prefectures.  But  whereas  the  first  man  is 
learning  the  rudiments  of  the  art  of  getting  on  in  the  world, 
the  latter  is  wasting  his  time,  health,  and  life.  Here,  again, 
the  ground  rang  hollow. 

Of  course,  a  nation  is  not  threatened  with  extinction  be- 
cause a  capable  clerk  retires  and  a  third-rate  man  takes  his 
place.  Unluckily  for  nations,  it  would  seem  that  no  man  is  in- 
dispensable to  their  existence ;  but  when  all  men  have  come 
down  to  a  low  level,  the  nation  disappears.  If  any  one  wants 
an  instructive  example,  he  can  go  to  Venice,  Madrid,  Amster- 
dam, Stockholm,  and  Rome  :  the  places  where  men  of  immense 
power  used  to  shine  conspicuous  arc  crumbling  ruins,  destroyed 
by  pettiness  which  corroded  its  way  till  it  reached  high  places 
that  it  could  not  fill.  When  the  day  of  struggle  came,  every- 
thing collapsed  at  the  first  threat  of  attack. 

But  what  a  difficult  problem  was  this  !  To  rehabilitate  the 
official  at  a  time  when  the  Liberal  press  was  clamoring  through 
every  workshop  that  the  nation  was  being  robbed  year  by  year 


214  LES  EMPLOYES. 

to  pay  official  salaries,  and  every  heading  in  the  budget  was 
represented  as  a  horse-leech.  "  What  was  the  good  of  paying 
a  milliard  of  taxes  every  year?  "  cried  the  Liberals. 

To  M.  Rabourdin's  thinking,  the  government  employe  was 
to  the  national  expenditure  what  the  gambler  is  to  the  gam- 
bling saloon — whatever  he  takes  away  in  his  pocket  he  brings 
back  again.  A  good  salary,  in  his  opinion,  was  a  good  in- 
vestment. If  you  only  pay  a  man  a  thousand  francs  a  year, 
and  ask  for  his  whole  time,  do  you  not  as  good  as  organize 
theft  and  misery  ?  A  convict  costs  you  very  nearly  as  much, 
and  does  rather  less  work.  But  if  the  Government  pays  a 
man  a  salary  of  twelve  thousand  francs,  and  expects  him  to 
devote  himself  in  return  to  the  service,  the  contract  would 
pay  both  sides,  and  the  prospect  ought  to  attract  really  capable 
men. 

These  reflections  thereupon  led  Rabourdin  to  reconstitute 
the  staff;  to  have  fewer  clerks,  salaries  trebled  or  doubled, 
and  pensions  suppressed.  The  Government  should  follow 
the  example  set  by  Napoleon,  Louis  XIV.,  Richelieu,  and 
Ximenes,  and  employ  young  men  ;  but  the  young  men  should 
grow  old  in  the  service.  The  higher  posts  and  distinctions 
should  be  the  rewards  of  their  career.  These  were  the  capital 
points  of  a  reform  by  which  the  government  and  the  official 
staff  would  alike  be  benefited. 

It  is  not  easy  to  enter  into  details,  to  take  heading  by  head- 
ing, and  go  through  a  scheme  of  reform  which  embraced  the 
whole  of  the  budget  and  descended  into  all  the  smallest  rami- 
fications of  the  administration,  so  that  the  whole  might  be 
brought  into  harmony.  Perhaps,  too,  an  indication  of  the 
principal  reforms  will  be  enough  for  those  who  know  the  ad- 
ministrative system — and  for  those  who  do  not.  But  though 
the  historian  ventures  upon  dangerous  ground  when  he  gives 
an  account  of  a  scheme  that  has  very  much  the  look  of  armchair 
policy,  he  is  none  the  less  bound  to  give  a  rough  idea  of  Ra- 
bourdin's projects  for  the  sake  of  the  light  which  a  man's  work 


LES  EMPLOYES.  215 

throws  on  his  character.  If  all  account  of  Rabourdin's  labors 
were  omitted,  if  this  historian  contented  himself  with  the 
simple  statement  that  the  chief  clerk  in  a  government  office 
possessed  talent  or  audacity,  you  would  scarcely  feel  prepared 
to  take  his  word  for  it. 

Rabourdin  divided  up  the  administration  into  three  prin- 
cipal departments.  He  thought  that  if  in  former  times  there 
were  heads  capable  of  controlling  the  whole  policy  of  the 
government  at  home  and  abroad,  the  France  of  to-day  surely 
would  not  lack  a  Mazarin,  a  Suger,  a  Sully,  a  Choiseul,  a 
Colbert,  to  direct  far  larger  departments  than  those  of  the 
actual  system.  From  a  constitutional  point  of  view,  more- 
over, three  ministers  would  work  better  together  than  seven, 
and  the  chances  of  going  wrong  in  the  choice  are  reduced  ; 
while,  as  a  last  consideration,  the  crown  would  be  spared  the 
jolts  of  those  perpetual  changes  of  ministry  which  make  it 
impossible  to  adhere  to  any  consistent  course  of  foreign  policy, 
or  to  carry  through  reforms  at  home.  In  Austria,  where  dif- 
ferent nationalities  present  a  problem  of  different  interests  to 
be  reconciled  and  furthered  by  the  crown,  two  statesmen  carry 
the  weight  of  public  business  without  being  overburdened. 
Was  France  poorer  in  political  capacity  than  Germany?  The 
sufficiently  silly  farce,  entitled  "  Constitutional  Institutions," 
has  since  been  carried  to  an  unreasonable  extent  ;  and  the 
end  of  it,  as  everybody  knows,  has  been  a  multiplication  of 
ministerial  portfolios  to  satisfy  the  widespread  ambition  of  the 
bourgeoisie. 

In  the  first  place,  it  seemed  natural  to  Rabourdin  to  reunite 
the  Admiralty  and  the  War  Office.  The  navy,  like  the  artil- 
lery, cavalry,  infantry,  and  ordnance,  was  a  spending  depart- 
ment of  the  War  Office.  It  was  surely  an  anomaly  to  keep 
admirals  and  marshals  on  a  separate  footing,  when  all  worked 
together  for  a  common  end — to  wit,  the  defense  of  the  country, 
the  protection  of  national  property,  and  wars  of  aggression. 
The  Minister  of  the  Interior  was  to  preside  over  the  Board  of 


216  LES  EMPLOYES. 

Trade,  the  Police,  and  the  Exchequer,  the  better  to  deserve 
his  name  ;  while  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  controlled 
the  administration  of  justice,  the  royal  household,  and  every- 
thing in  the  interior  which  concerned  arts,  letters,  or  the 
graces.  All  patronage  was  to  flow  directly  from  the  crown. 
The  last-named  minister,  by  virtue  of  his  office,  was  also 
president  of  the  Council  of  State.  The  work  of  each  of  these 
departments  would  require  a  staff  of  two  hundred  clerks  at 
most  at  headquarters ;  and  Rabourdin  proposed  to  house  them 
all  in  one  building,  as  in  former  days  under  the  monarchy. 
Reckoning  the  salaries  at  an  average  of  twelve  thousand  francs, 
the  expense  of  this  item  in  the  budget  would  a  little  exceed 
seven  millions,  as  against  twenty  millions  on  the  actual  system. 

By  reducing  the  number  of  the  departments  to  three,  Ra- 
bourdin suppressed  whole  divisions,  and  saved  the  enormous 
expense  of  their  maintenance  in  Paris.  He  proved  that  an 
arrondissement  ought  to  be  worked  by  ten  men,  and  a  prefec- 
ture by  a  dozen  at  most  ;  on  which  computation  the  total 
number  of  government  officials  employed  all  over  France  (the 
army  and  courts  of  law  excepted)  would  only  amount  to  about 
five  thousand — a  number  then  exceeded  by  the  staff  in  Paris 
alone.  On  this  plan,  however,  mortgages  became  the  province 
of  the  clerks  of  the  various  courts  ;  the  staff  of  counsel  for  the 
crown  {jninisi'ere  public)  in  each  court  would  undertake  the 
registration  of  titles  and  the  superintendence  of  the  crown 
lands. 

In  this  way  Rabourdin  concentrated  sim.ilar  functions. 
Mortgages,  death-dues,  and  registration  of  titles  remained 
within  judicial  spheres,  while  three  supernumeraries  in  each 
court,  and  three  in  the  Court-Royal,  sufficed  for  the  extra 
work. 

By  the  consistent  application  of  the  same  principle,  Ra- 
bourdin proceeded  to  financial  reform.  He  had  amalgamated 
all  Imperial  taxes  in  one  single  tax,  levied,  not  upon  property, 
but  upon  commodities  consumed.     An  assessed  tax  upon  con- 


LES  EMPLOYES.  217 

sumption,  in  his  opinion,  was  the  only  way  of  raising  the 
national  revenue  in  times  of  peace,  the  land-tax  being  reserved 
for  times  of  war.  Then,  and  then  alone,  the  State  might 
demand  sacrifices  of  the  owners  of  the  soil  for  the  defense  of 
the  soil ;  at  other  times  it  was  a  gross  political  blunder  to  vex 
the  land  with  burdens  beyond  a  certain  limit ;  something 
should  be  left  to  fall  back  upon  in  great  crises.  On  the  same 
principle,  loans  were  to  be  negotiated  in  time  of  peace,  be- 
cause they  can  then  be  issued  at  par,  and  not  (as  in  hard 
times)  at  fifty  per  cent,  discount.  If  war  broke  out,  the  land- 
tax  remained  as  a  resource. 

"The  invasion  of  1814  and  1815  did  what  neither  Mon- 
sieur Law  nor  Napoleon  could  do,"  Rabourdin  used  to  say  to 
his  friends;  "  it  proved  the  necessity  of  a  National  Debt,  and 
created  it." 

Rabourdin  held  that  the  true  principles  of  this  wonderful 
mechanism  were,  unfortunately,  not  sufficiently  understood  at 
the  time  when  he  began  his  work,  which  is  to  say,  in  1820. 
He  proposed  to  lay  a  direct  tax  upon  commodities  consumed 
by  the  nation,  and  in  this  way  to  make  a  clean  sweep  of  the 
whole  apparatus  for  the  collection  of  indirect  taxes.  He  would 
do  away  with  the  vexatious  barricades  at  town  gates,  securing 
at  the  same  time  a  far  larger  return  by  simplifying  the  ex- 
tremely costly  system  of  collection  in  actual  use.  The  receipts 
from  the  one  Imperial  tax  should  be  regulated  by  a  tariff  com- 
prising various  articles  of  consumption,  and  the  amount  fixed 
in  each  case  by  assessment.  To  diminish  the  burdensomeness 
of  a  tax  does  not  necessarily  mean  in  matters  financial  that 
you  diminish  the  tax  itself;  it  is  only  more  conveniently 
assessed.  If  you  lighten  the  burden,  business  is  transacted 
more  freely,  and  while  the  individual  pays  less,  the  State  gets 
more. 

Tremendous  as  this  reform  may  seem,  it  was  carried  out  in 
a  very  simple  fashion.  Rabourdin  took  for  a  basis  the  assess- 
ments made  by  the    Internal    Revenue  Department  and  the 

H 


218  LES  EMPLOYES. 

licenses,  as  the  fairest  way  of  computing  consumption.  House 
rent  in  France  is  a  remarkably  accurate  guide  in  the  matter  of 
the  incomes  of  private  individuals ;  and  servants,  horses,  and 
carriages  lend  themselves  to  estimates  for  the  Exchequer. 
Houses  and  their  contents  vary  very  little  in  yearly  value,  and 
do  not  easily  disappear.  Rabourdin  pointed  out  a  method  of 
obtaining  more  veracious  returns  than  those  given  by  the 
system  in  use ;  then  he  took  the  total  revenue  derived  by  the 
Exchequer  from  (so-called)  indirect  taxation,  divided  it  up, 
and  assessed  his  single  tax  at  so  much  per  cent,  on  each  indi- 
vidual taxpayer. 

An  Imperial  tax  is  a  preliminary  charge  paid  on  things  or 
persons,  and  paid  under  more  or  less  specious  disguises.  Such 
disguises  were  well  enough  for  purposes  of  extortion  ;  but  surely 
they  are  absurd  in  these  days  when  the  classes  which  bear  the 
burden  of  taxation  know  perfectly  well  why  the  money  is 
wanted  and  how  it  is  raised.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  budget  is 
not  a  strong-box,  rather  it  is  a  watering-pot ;  as  it  is  filled  and  the 
water  distributed,  the  country  prospers.  Suppose,  for  instance, 
that  tliere  were  six  millions  of  taxpayers  in  easy  circumstances 
— and  Rabourdin  was  prepared  to  show  that  so  many  existed, 
if  the  rich  taxpayers  were  included  in  the  number — would  it 
not  be  better,  instead  of  putting  a  vexatious  tax  on  wine  by 
the  gallon,  to  ask  the  consumer  to  pay  a  fixed  sum  per  annum 
to  the  Government?  Such  "  wine-dues"  would  not  be  more 
odious  than  the  door  and  window  tax,  while  they  would  bring 
in  a  hundred  millions  to  the  Exchequer.  If  other  taxes  on 
consumption  were  likewise  assessed  in  proportion  to  the  house 
rent,  each  individual  would  actually  pay  less;  the  Govern- 
ment would  save  in  the  costs  of  collection  ;  and  the  consumer 
would  benefit  by  an  immense  reduction  in  the  prices  of  com- 
modities which  no  longer  would  be  subjected  to  endless  vexa- 
tious regulations. 

Rabourdin  reserved  a  tax  on  vineyards,  by  way  of  a  safe- 
guard against  over-production.     And,  the  better  to  reach  the 


LES  EMPLOY&S.  219 

poor  consumer,  the  charge  for  retailers'  licenses  was  made  in 
proportion  to  the  population  of  the  district.  In  these  three 
ways  the  Exchequer  would  raise  an  enormous  sum  without 
heavy  expense,  and  do  away  with  a  tax  which  was  not  only 
vexatious  and  burdensome,  but  also  very  expensive  to  collect. 
The  burden  would  fall  on  the  rich  instead  of  tormenting  the 
poor. 

Take  another  instance  :  Suppose  that  the  duty  on  salt  took 
the  form  of  one  or  two  francs  levied  on  each  taxpayer ;  the 
modern  gabelle  would  be  abolished,  the  poor  population  and 
agriculture  generally  would  feel  the  relief,  the  revenue  would 
not  be  diminished,  and  no  taxpayer  would  complain.  Every 
taxpayer  indeed,  whether  farmer  or  manufacturer,  would  be 
quick  to  recognize  the  improvement  if  the  conditions  of  living 
grew  easier  in  country  places,  and  trade  increased.  And,  in 
fact,  the  State  would  see  an  increase  in  the  number  of  tax- 
payers in  easy  circumstances.  The  Exchequer  would  save 
enormously  by  sweeping  away  the  extremely  costly  apparatus 
for  the  collection  of  indirect  taxation  (a  government  within  a 
government)  ;  and  both  the  Treasury  and  private  individuals 
would  benefit  by  the  economy.  Tobacco  and  gunpowder  were 
to  be  put  under  a  regie,  beneath  State  superintendence.  The 
regie  system,  developed  not  by  Rabourdin,  but  by  others, 
after  the  renewal  of  the  legislation  on  tobacco,  was  so  con- 
vincing that  that  law  would  have  had  no  chance  of  passing 
the  Chamber  if  the  Government  of  the  day  had  not  driven 
them  to  it.  But,  then,  it  was  a  question  of  finance  rather  than 
of  government. 

The  State  should  own  no  property ;  there  should  be  no 
Crown  domains,  no  woods  and  forests,  no  State  mines,  no 
State  enterprises.  The  State  as  a  landowner  was  an  adminis- 
trative anomaly,  in  Rabourdin's  opinion.  The  State  farms  at 
a  disadvantage,  and  receives  no  taxes  ;  there  is  a  double  loss. 
The  same  anomaly  reappeared  in  the  commercial  world  in  the 
shape  of  State  manufactures.     No  government  could  work  as 


220  LES  EMPLOYES. 

economically  as  private  enterprise;  the  processes  were  slower; 
and,  beside,  the  State  took  a  certain  proportion  of  raw  mate- 
rials off  the  market,  and  left  so  much  the  less  for  other  manu- 
facturers who  pay  taxes.  Is  it  the  duty  of  a  government  to 
manufacture  or  to  encourage  manufactures?  to  accumulate 
wealth,  or  to  see  instead  that  as  many  different  kinds  of  wealth 
as  possible  are  created  ? 

On  Rabourdin's  system,  officials  were  no  longer  to  pay 
caution-money  in  cash  ;  they  should  give  security  instead. 
And  for  this  reason :  the  State  either  keeps  the  money  in 
specie  (withdrawing  it  needlessly  from  circulation),  or  puts  it 
out  to  interest  at  a  rate  either  higher  or  lower  than  the  rate  of 
interest  paid  to  the  official ;  making  an  ignoble  profit  out  of 
its  servants  in  the  former  case,  or  paying  more  than  the 
market  price  for  a  loan  in  the  latter,  which  is  folly.  Lastly, 
if  at  any  time  the  State  disposes  of  the  mass  of  caution-money, 
it  prepares  the  way,  in  certain  contingencies,  for  a  terrible 
bankruptcy. 

The  land-tax  was  not  to  be  done  away  with  altogether. 
Rabourdin  allowed  a  very  small  amount  to  remain  for  the 
sake  of  keeping  the  machinery  in  working  order  in  case  of  a 
war.  But  clearly  produce  would  be  free,  and  manufacturers, 
finding  cheap  raw  materials,  could  compete  with  the  foreigner 
without  the  insidious  aid  of  protection. 

The  administration  of  the  departments  would  be  undertaken 
gratuitously  by  the  well-to-do,  a  possible  peerage  being  held 
out  as  an  inducement.  Magistrates,  and  their  subalterns,  and 
the  learned  professions,  should  receive  honors  as  a  recompense. 
The  consideration  in  which  government  officials  were  held 
would  be  immensely  increased  by  the  importance  of  their 
posts  and  considerable  salaries.  Each  would  be  thinking  of 
his  career,  and  France  would  no  longer  suffer  from  the  pension 
cancer. 

As  the  outcome  of  all  this,  Rabourdin  estimated  that  the 
expenditure  would   be  reduced  to  seven   hundred  millions, 


LES  EMPLOYES.  221 

while  the  receipts  would  amount,  as  before,  to  twelve  hundred 
millions  of  francs.  An  annual  surplus  of  five  millions  could 
be  made  to  tell  more  effectually  on  the  Debt  than  the  paltry 
Sinking  Fund,  of  which  the  fallacy  had  been  clearly  shown. 
By  establishing  a  Sinking  Fund,  the  State  became  a  fund- 
holder,  as  well  as  a  landowner  and  manufacturer.  Lastly,  to 
carry  out  his  project  without  undue  friction,  and  to  avoid  a 
St.  Bartholomew  of  employes,  Rabourdin  asked  for  twenty 
years. 

These  were  the  matured  ideas  of  the  man  whose  place  had 
been  given  to  the  incompetent  M.  de  la  Billardiere.  A 
scheme  so  vast  in  appearance,  yet  so  simple  in  the  working, 
a  project  which  swept  away  more  than  one  great  official  staff, 
and  suppressed  many  an  equally  useless  little  place,  required 
continual  calculation,  accurate  statistics,  and  the  clearest  proofs 
to  substantiate  it.  For  a  long  while  Rabourdin  had  studied 
the  budget  in  its  double  aspect,  that  of  ways  and  means  on 
the  one  side,  and  expenditure  on  the  other.  His  wife  did  not 
know  how  many  nights  he  gave  to  these  thoughts. 

And  yet  to  have  conceived  the  project  and  superimposed 
it  on  the  dead  body  of  the  administration  was  as  nothing  ; 
Rabourdin  had  still  to  find  a  minister  capable  of  appreciating 
his  reforms.  His  success  clearly  depended  upon  a  quiet  poli- 
tical outlook,  and  the  times  were  still  unsettled.  He  only 
considered  that  the  Government  was  finally  secure  when  three 
hundred  deputies  had  the  courage  to  form  themselves  into  a 
solid  systematic  ministerialist  majority.  An  administration 
established  on  that  basis  had  been  inaugurated  since  Rabourdin 
completed  his  scheme.  Tiie  splendor  of  the  time  of  peace, 
due  to  the  Bourbons,  eclipsed  the  military  splendors  of  the 
brilliant  days  when  France  was  one  vast  camp  and  victories 
abroad  were  followed  by  expenditure  and  display  at  home. 
After  the  Spanish  campaign,  the  Government  seemed  as  if  it 
were  surely  entering  upon  a  peaceful  era  in  which  good  might 
be  done ;  and,  indeed,  but  three  months  before,  a  new  reign 


222  LES  EMPLOYES. 

had  begun  unhampered  by  any  obstacles,  and  the  Liberals  of 
the  Left  hailed  Charles  X.  with  as  much  enthusiasm  as  the 
party  of  the  Right.  It  was  enough  to  deceive  the  most  clear- 
sighted. Consequently,  the  moment  seemed  propitious  to 
Rabourdin  ;  for  if  an  administration  took  up  so  great  a  scheme 
of  reform,  and  undertook  to  carry  it  through,  it  must  of  neces- 
sity insure  its  own  continuance  in  office. 

Never  before  had  Rabourdin  seemed  more  thoughtful  and 
preoccupied  as  he  walked  to  his  office  of  a  morning,  and  came 
back  again  at  half-past  four  in  the  afternoon.  And  Mme. 
Rabourdin,  on  her  side,  despairing  over  her  spoilt  life,  and 
weary  of  working  in  private  for  some  few  luxuries  of  dress, 
had  never  seemed  so  sourly  discontent.  Still  she  was  attached 
to  her  husband ;  and  the  shameful  intrigues  by  which  the 
wives  of  other  officials  supplemented  an  inadequate  salary 
were,  in  her  opinion,  unworthy  of  a  woman  so  much  above 
the  ordinary  level.  For  this  reason  she  refused  to  have  any- 
thing to  do  with  Mme.  Colleville,  who  was  intimate  with 
Francois  Keller,  and  gave  entertainments  which  eclipsed  the 
parties  in  the  Rue  Duphot.  Celestine  took  the  impassive 
manner  of  the  political  thinker,  the  mental  preoccupation  of 
a  hard  worker,  for  the  listless  apathy  of  an  official  drudge 
whose  spirit  has  been  broken  by  routine  ;  she  thought  her 
husband  was  submitting  to  the  yoke  of  the  most  hateful 
poverty  of  all — the  poverty  of  straitened  means  that  just 
enables  a  man  to  live.  She  sighed  to  think  that  she  should 
have  married  a  man  of  so  little  energy.  And  so,  about  this 
time,  she  determined  that  she  would  make  her  husband's 
fortune  for  him ;  at  all  costs,  she  would  launch  him  into  a 
higher  sphere,  and  she  would  hide  all  the  springs  of  action 
from  him.  She  set  about  this  task  with  the  originality  of 
conception  which  distinguished  her  from  other  women  ;  she 
prided  herself  on  rising  above  their  level,  on  totally  disregard- 
ing their  little  prejudices  ;  the  barriers  that  society  raises  about 
her  sex  should  not  impede  her.     She  would  fight  fools  with 


LES  EMPLOYES.  223 

their  own  weapon,  so  she  vowed  in  her  frenzy ;  she  would 
stake  herself  upon  the  issue  if  there  was  no  other  way.  In 
short,  she  saw  things  from  a  height. 

The  moment  was  favorable.  M.  de  la  Billardiere  was  hope- 
lessly ill,  and  must  die  in  a  few  days.  If  Rabourdin  succeeded 
to  the  place,  his  talents  (Celestine  admitted  his  administrative 
ability)  would  be  so  well  appreciated  that  the  post  of  master 
of  requests  (promised  before)  would  be  given  to  him.  Then 
he  would  be  royal  commissary,  and  bring  forward  the  measures 
of  the  government  in  the  Chamber.  How  she  would  help 
him  then!  She  would  be  his  secretary;  if  necessary,  she 
would  work  all  night.  All  this  that  she  might  drive  a  charm- 
ing caliche  in  the  Bois  de  Boulogne,  and  stand  on  a  footing 
of  equality  with  Mme.  Delphine  Nucingen,  and  raise  her  salon 
to  a  level  with  Mme.  Colleville's,  and  be  invited  to  high 
ministerial  solemnities,  and  gain  an  appreciative  audience. 
People  should  call  her  "  Madame  Rabourdin  de  Something-or- 
other  "  (she  did  not  know  yet  where  her  estate  should  be),  just 
as  they  said  Mme.  d'Espard,  Mme.  d'Aiglemont,  or  Mme.  de 
Carigliano.  In  short,  of  all  things  she  would  put  the  odious- 
sounding  name  of  Rabourdin  out  of  sight. 

These  secret  aspirations  produced  certain  corresponding 
changes  in  the  house.  Mme.  Rabourdin  began  by  walking 
resolutely  into  debt.  She  engaged  a  manservant  and  put  him 
into  an  inconspicuous  livery,  brown  with  red  pipings.  Slie 
renewed  some  of  the  furniture;  papered  her  rooms  afresh, 
decorated  them  with  a  constant  succession  of  flowers,  and 
strewed  them  with  trinkets  then  in  fashion  ;  while  she  herself, 
who  used  to  feel  occasional  conscientious  qualms  as  to  her 
expenses,  no  longer  hesitated  to  dress  in  a  manner  worthy  of 
her  ambitions.  The  various  tradesmen  who  supplied  her  with 
the  munitions  of  war  discounted  her  expectations.  She  gave 
a  dinner-party  regularly  every  Friday,  the  guests  being  ex- 
pected to  call  to  take  a  cup  of  tea  on  the  following  Wednesday. 
And  her  dinner  guests  were  carefully  chosen  from  among  in- 


224  LES  EMPLOYES. 

fluential  deputies  and  personages  who  might  directly  or  indi- 
rectly promote  her  interests.  People  enjoyed  those  evenings 
very  much ;  or  they  professed  to  do  so  at  any  rate,  and  that  is 
enough  to  attract  guests  in  Paris.  As  for  Rabourdin,  he  was 
so  intently  occupied  with  the  conclusion  of  his  great  labors 
that  he  never  noticed  the  outbreak  of  luxury  in  his  house. 

And  so  it  came  to  pass  that  the  husband  and  wife,  all  un- 
known to  each  other,  were  laying  siege  to  the  same  place  and 
working  on  parallel  lines. 

Now  there  flourished  in  those  days  a  certain  secretary- 
general,  by  name  Clement  Chardin  des  Lupeaulx,  a  personage 
of  a  kind  that  is  sometimes  brought  much  into  evidence  for  a 
few  years  at  a  time  by  the  tide  of  political  events.  Subse- 
quently, if  a  storm  arises,  he  and  his  like  are  swept  away  again  ; 
you  may  find  them  stranded  on  the  shore  heaven  knows  how 
far  away.  But  even  so  the  hulk  has  a  certain  air  of  import- 
ance. The  traveler  wonders  whether  the  wrecked  vessel  con- 
tained valuable  merchandise,  whether  it  played  a  part  on 
some  great  occasion,  took  a  share  in  a  great  sea-fight,  or  carried 
the  velvet  canopy  of  a  throne,  or  the  dead  body  of  a  king. 
At  this  precise  juncture  Clement  des  Lupeaulx  (the  Lupeaulx 
had  absorbed  the  Chardin)  had  reached  his  apogee.  In  every 
life,  however  illustrious  or  obscure,  in  the  careers  of  dumb 
animals  as  of  secretaries-general,  is  there  not  a  zenith  and  a 
nadir? — a  period  when  glossiness  and  sleekness  reach  a  climax, 
and  prosperity  reaches  its  utmost  radiance  of  glory  ?  In  the 
nomenclature  of  the  fabulist,  des  Lupeaulx  belonged  to  the 
Bertrand  genus,  and  his  whole  occupation  consisted  in  dis- 
covering Ratons.  As  he  happens  to  be  one  of  the  principal 
characters  in  this  drama,  he  deserves  to  be  described  therein, 
and  so  much  the  more  fully  because  the  Revolution  of  July 
abolished  his  place;  and  a  secretary-genera]  was  an  eminently 
useful  institution  for  a  constitutional  minister. 

It  is  the  wont  of  the  moralist  to  pour  forth  his  indignation 


LES  EMPLOYES.  225 

upon  transcendent  abominations.  Crimes  for  him  are  deeds 
that  bring  a  man  into  the  police-courts,  social  subtleties  escape 
his  analysis;  the  ingenuity  which  gains  its  ends  with  the  Code 
for  a  weapon  is  either  too  high  or  too  low,  he  has  neither 
magnifying  glass  nor  telescope ;  he  must  have  good,  strong- 
colored  horrors,  abundantly  visible  to  the  naked  eye.  And 
as  he  is  always  occupied,  as  one  may  say,  with  the  carnivora, 
he  has  no  attention  to  spare  for  reptiles ;  so,  luckily  for  the 
satirists,  the  fine  shades  of  a  Chardin  des  Lupeaulx  are  left  to 
them. 

Selfish  and  vain  ;  supple  and  proud  ;  sensual  and  gluttonous  ; 
rapacious  (for  he  had  debts)  ;  discreet  as  a  tomb  which  keeps 
its  own  secrets  and  allows  nothing  to  issue  forth  to  give  the 
lie  to  the  inscription  meant  to  edify  the  passing  traveler; 
undaunted  and  fearless  in  asking  favors ;  amiable  and  witty  in 
every  sense  of  the  latter  word  ;  tactful  and  ironical  at  need ; 
— the  secretary-general  was  one  among  the  crowd  of  medioc- 
rities which  form  the  kernel  of  the  political  world.  As 
politician,  he  was  ready  to  leap  gracefully  over  any  stream, 
however  broad  ;  he  was  the  kind  of  man  that  can  do  you  more 
harm  with  a  kiss  than  by  a  thrust  with  the  elbow;  he  was  a 
brazen-fronted  skeptic  that  would  go  to  mass  at  Saint-Thomas 
d'Aquin's  if  there  was  a  fashionable  congregation  there. 
Des  Lupeaulx's  knowledge  consisted  in  knowing  what  other 
people  knew ;  he  had  chosen  the  profession  of  eavesdropper, 
and  never  did  any  of  the  confraternity  pay  a  more  strict 
attention  to  business.  In  his  care  not  to  arouse  suspicion  he 
was  nauseatingly  fulsome  ;  subtle  as  a  perfume,  caressing  as  a 
woman  in  his  manners. 

Chardin  des  Lupeaulx  had  just  completed  his  fortieth  year. 
His  youth  had  long  been  a  source  of  affliction  to  him,  for  he 
felt  instinctively  that  only  as  a  deputy  could  he  lay  a  sure 
foundation  for  his  fortune.  Does  any  one  ask  how  he  had 
made  his  way?  In  a  very  simple  manner.  Des  Lupeaulx 
was  a  political  Bonneau.  He  undertook  commissions  of  the 
15 


226  LES  EMPLOYES. 

delicate  kind  which  can  neither  be  given  to  a  man  that 
respects  himself,  nor  yet  to  a  man  that  has  lost  his  self-respect. 
Errands  of  that  sort  are  usually  undertaken  by  serious  persons 
of  somewhat  doubtful  authority,  whom  it  is  easy  to  disavow 
should  occasion  require  it.  He  was  continually  compromised, 
that  was  his  calling ;  and  whether  he  failed  or  succeeded,  he 
got  on  equally  fast. 

The  Restoration  was  a  time  of  compromise  ;  compromise 
between  man  and  man,  and  between  accomplished  facts  and 
coming  events.  In  all  public  business,  in  short,  there  was  a 
perpetual  process  of  give  and  take.  Des  Lupeaulx  grasped 
the  idea  that  authority  stood  in  need  of  a  charwoman. 

Let  an  old  woman  once  get  a  footing  in  a  house ;  let  her 
learn  how  to  make  the  beds  and  turn  them  down  to  satis- 
faction ;  let  her  know  where  the  spoons  are  kept,  where  to 
sweep  refuse,  where  to  put  the  soiled  linen,  and  where  to  find 
it;  let  her  acquire  the  arts  of  pacifying  duns  and  distinguish- 
ing the  right  kind  of  person  to  admit ;  let  her  once  gain  her 
footing,  I  repeat,  and  such  a  woman  may  have  her  faults,  yet 
were  she  toothless,  crooked,  uncleanly  in  her  person  and  habits 
— nay,  were  she  addicted  to  the  lottery  and  in  the  habit  of 
appropriating  thirty  sous  daily  for  her  stakes  therein — her 
employers  are  used  to  her  ways,  and  do  not  care  to  part  with 
her.  They  will  hold  counsel  on  the  most  delicate  family 
affairs  in  her  presence  ;  she  is  on  hand  to  remind  them  of 
resources  and  to  scent  out  secrets  ;  she  brings  the  rouge-pot 
and  the  shawl  at  the  psychological  moment ;  she  allows  them 
to  scold  her,  to  bundle  her  downstairs  ;  but,  lo  !  next  morn- 
ing, at  their  awakening,  she  enters  gaily  with  an  excellent 
cup  of  broth.  However  great  a  statesman  may  be,  he  too 
needs  a  charwoman,  a  factotum  with  whom  he  can  show  him- 
self weak  and  irresolute  ;  somebody  in  whose  presence  he  can 
carp  at  his  destiny,  put  questions  to  himself,  and  answer  them, 
and  screw  his  courage  up  to  the  sticking-point.  Does  not  the 
savage  get  sparks  by  rubbing  a  bit  of  hard  wood  against  a 


LES  EMPLOYES.  227 

softer  piece  ?  Many  a  bright  genius  is  kindled  on  the  same 
principle.  Napoleon  found  such  a  partner  of  his  joys  and 
cares  in  Berthier,  Richelieu  in  Pere  Joseph  ;  des  Lupeaulx 
took  up  with  anybody  and  everybody.  Did  a  minister  fall 
from  power  ?  Des  Lupeaulx  kept  on  good  terms  with  him, 
acting  as  intermediary  between  the  outgoing  and  incoming 
member  of  the  government,  soothing  the  former  with  a  parting 
piece  of  flattery,  and  perfuming  a  first  compliment  for  the 
latter.  Des  Lupeaulx,  moreover,  understood  to  admiration 
those  little  trifles  of  which  a  statesman  has  no  leisure  to  think. 
He  could  recognize  a  necessity ;  he  was  apt  in  obedience. 
He  enhanced  the  value  of  his  knavery  by  being  the  first  to 
laugh  at  it,  the  better  to  gain  its  full  price ;  and  he  was  always 
particularly  careful  to  perform  services  of  a  kind  which  were 
not  likely  to  be  forgotten.  When,  for  instance,  people  were 
obliged  to  cross  the  gulf  fixed  between  the  Empire  and  the 
Restoration  ;  when  everybody  was  looking  about  for  a  plank  ; 
while  all  the  curs  in  the  Imperial  service  were  rushing  over  to 
the  other  side  with  voluble  professions  of  devotion,  des  Lu- 
peaulx had  raised  large  sums  of  the  money-lenders,  and  was 
crossing  the  frontier.  He  staked  all  to  win  all.  He  bought 
up  the  most  pressing  minor  debts  contracted  in  exile  by  his 
majesty  Louis  XVIH.;  and  being  the  first  in  the  field,  he 
contrived  to  discharge  nearly  three  millions  at  twenty  per 
cent.,  for  he  had  the  good  luck  to  operate  in  the  thick  of  the 
events  of  1814  and  181 5.  The  profits  were  swallowed  down 
by  Messieurs  Gobseck,  Werbrust,  and  Gigonnet,  the  croupiers 
of  the  enterprise  ;  but  des  Lupeaulx  had  promised  as  much  to 
them.  He  was  not  playing  a  stake,  he  was  venturing  the 
whole  bank,  knowing  well  that  Louis  XVIIL  was  not  the 
man  to  forget  such  a  whitewashing. 

Des  Lupeaulx  received  the  appointment  of  master  of  re- 
quests; he  was  made  a  chevalier  of  St.  Louis  and  an  officer  of 
the  Legion  of  Honor.  Having  once  gained  a  footing,  the 
adroit  climber  cast  about  for  a  way  of  maintaining  himself  on 


228  LES  EMPLOY  As. 

the  ladder.  He  had  gained  an  entrance  into  the  stronghold, 
but  generals  are  not  wont  to  keep  any  useless  mouths  for  long. 
And  then  it  was  thai  to  his  professions  of  useful  help  and  go- 
between  he  added  a  third — he  gave  gratuitous  advice  on  the 
internal  diseases  of  power. 

He  discovered  that  the  so-called  great  men  of  the  Restora- 
tion were  profoundly  unequal  to  the  occasion.  Events  were 
ruling  them.  He  overawed  mediocre  politicians  by  going  to 
them  in  the  height  of  a  crisis  and  selling  them  those  watch- 
words which  men  of  talent  hear  as  they  listen  to  the  future. 
You  are  by  no  means  to  suppose  that  such  watchwords  origi- 
nated with  des  Lupeaulx  himself;  if  they  had,  he  would  have 
been  a  genius,  whereas  he  was  simply  a  clever  men.  Bertrand 
Clement  des  Lupeaulx  went  everywhere,  collecting  opinions, 
fathoming  men's  inner  consciousness,  and  catching  the  sounds 
they  gave  forth.  Like  a  genuine  and  indefatigable  political 
bee,  he  gathered  knowledge  from  all  sources.  He  was  a 
'' Bayle's  Dictionary  "  in  flesh  and  blood,  but  he  improved 
upon  his  famous  prototype  ;  he  gathered  all  opinions,  but  he 
did  not  leave  others  to  draw  their  own  conclusions,  and  he  had 
the  instinct  of  the  bluebottle  fly ;  he  dropped  down  straight- 
way upon  the  most  succulent  morsels  of  meat  in  the  kitchen. 

For  which  reasons  des  Lupeaulx  was  supposed  to  be  indis- 
pensable to  statesmen.  Indeed,  the  idea  took  so  deep  a  root 
in  people's  minds  that  ambitious  and  successful  men  judged 
it  expedient  to  compromise  des  Lupeaulx,  lest  he  should  rise 
too  high,  and  indemnified  him  for  his  lack  of  importance  in 
public  by  using  their  interest  for  him  in  private. 

Nevertheless,  as  soon  as  this  fisher  of  ideas  felt  that  he  was 
generally  supported,  he  had  insisted  upon  earnest-money. 
He  drew  his  pay  as  a  staff  officer  of  the  National  Guard,  in 
which  he  held  a  sinecure  at  the  expense  of  the  city  of  Paris ;  he 
was  a  government  commissioner  for  the  superintendence  of  a 
joint-stock  company,  and  an  inspector  in  the  royal  household. 
His  name  appeared  twice  beside  in  the  civil  list  as  a  secretary- 


LES  EMPLOYES.  229 

general  and  master  of  requests.  At  this  moment  it  was  his 
ambition  to  be  a  commander  of  the  Legion  of  Honor,  a  gen- 
tleman of  the  bedchamber,  a  count,  and  a  deputy  ;  but  for 
this  last  position  he  had  not  the  necessary  qualifications.  A 
deputy  in  those  days  was  bound  to  pay  a  thousand  francs  in 
taxes,  and  des  Lupeaulx's  miserable  place  in  the  country  was 
scarcely  worth  five  hundred  francs  a  year.  Where  was  he  to 
find  the  money  to  build  a  country-house ;  to  surround  it  with 
respectable  estates,  and  throw  dust  in  the  eyes  of  his  con- 
stituents? 

At  the  opening  of  this  Scene  he  had  scarce  anything  to  call 
his  own  save  a  round  thirty  thousand  francs'  worth  of  debts,  to 
which  nobody  disputed  his  title.  Des  Lupeaulx  dined  out 
everyday.  For  nine  years  he  had  been  housed  at  the  expense 
of  the  State,  and  the  ministers'  carriages  were  at  his  disposal. 
Marriage  might  set  him  afloat  again,  if  he  could  bale  out  the 
waters  that  threatened  to  submerge  him  ;  but  a  good  match 
depended  upon  advancement,  and  advancement  depended 
upon  a  seat  in  the  Chamber  of  Deputies.  Casting  about  for 
some  way  of  breaking  through  this  vicious  circle,  he  saw  but 
one  expedient — to  wit,  some  great  service  to  be  rendered  to 
the  government,  or  some  profitable  bit  of  jobbery.  But  con- 
spiracies (alas  !)  were  played  out.  The  Bourbons,  to  all  ap- 
pearance, had  triumphed  over  faction.  And  as  for  jobbery  ! — 
the  Left  benches,  unluckily,  were  doing  all  that  in  them  lay 
to  make  any  government  impossible  in  France ;  for  several 
years  past  their  absurd  discussions  had  thrown  such  a  searching 
light  upon  the  doings  of  the  government  that  good  bits  of 
business  were  out  of  the  question.  The  last  had  been  done  in 
Spain,  and  what  a  fuss  they  had  made  about  it  !  To  crown 
all,  des  Lupeaulx  had  multiplied  difficulties  for  himself.  Be- 
lieving in  the  ministers'  friendship  for  him,  he  imprudently 
expressed  his  desire  to  be  seated  on  the  ministerial  benches. 
The  Ministry  was  not  slow  to  perceive  the  origin  of  this  desire. 
Pes  Lupeaulx  meant  to  strengthen  a  precarious  position,  and 


230  LES  EMPLOYES. 

to  be  no  longer  dependent  upon  them.  It  was  the  revolt  of 
the  hound  against  the  hunter.  Wherefore,  the  Ministry  gave 
him  now  a  cut  or  two  with  the  whip,  and  now  a  caress.  They 
raised  up  rivals  unto  him.  But  des  Lupeaulx  behaved  toward 
these  as  a  clever  courtesan  treats  new-comers  in  her  profes- 
sion :  he  spread  snares,  they  fell  into  them,  and  he  made  them 
feel  the  consequences  pretty  promptly.  The  more  he  felt  that 
his  position  was  unsafe,  the  more  he  coveted  a  permanent 
berth ;  but  clearly  he  must  not  show  his  hand.  In  one  moment 
he  might  lose  everything.  A  single  stroke  of  the  pen  would 
clip  away  his  colonel's  epaulettes,  his  controller's  place,  his 
sinecure  with  the  joint-stock  company,  and  his  two  posts 
beside,  with  their  advantages — six  salaries  in  all,  cunningly 
preserved  in  the  teeth  of  the  law  against  cumulative  holdings  ! 
Not  infrequently  des  Lupeaulx  would  hold  out  a  threat 
over  his  minister,  as  a  mistress  frightens  her  lover ;  he  was 
"about  to  marry  a  rich  widow,"  and  then  the  minister  would 
coax  the  dear  des  Lupeaulx.  It  was  during  one  of  these  re- 
newals of  love  that  the  secretary-general  received  a  promise  of 
the  first  vacancy  at  the  Academic  des  Inscriptions  et  Belles 
Lettres.  It  was  enough  to  keep  a  horse  upon,  he  said. 
Clement  Chardin  des  Lupeaulx  flourished  like  a  tree  set  in 
congenial  soil.  He  found  satisfaction  for  his  vices  and  virtues, 
his  fancies  and  defects. 

Now  for  the  burdens  of  his  day.  First  of  all,  out  of  half  a 
dozen  invitations  to  select  the  best  dinner.  This  being  de- 
cided, he  went  the  first  thing  in  the  morning  to  amuse  the 
minister  and  his  wife,  and  fondle  and  play  with  the  children. 
Then  he  usually  worked  for  an  hour  or  two ;  which  is  to  say, 
he  spread  himself  out  in  a  comfortable  armchair  to  read  the 
papers,  dictate  the  gist  of  a  letter,  receive  all  comers  in  the 
minister's  absence,  lay  down  the  rough  outline  of  the  day's 
routine,  receive  and  give  promises  that  meant  nothing,  and 
run  over  petitions  with  his  eyeglass.  To  these  he  sometimes 
affixed  his  signature,  which,  being  intrepreted,  meant:  "Do 


LES  EMPLOYES.  231 

as  you  like  about  this  ;  I  don't  care."  Everybody  knew  th-^t 
if  des  Lupeaulx  were  really  interested  in  a  matter,  he  would 
interfere  in  person.  Some  confidential  chat  on  delicate  topics 
was  vouchsafed  to  the  upper  clerks,  and  he  listened  to  their 
gossip  in  return.  Every  now  and  again  he  went  to  the 
Tuileries  to  take  orders;  then  he  waited  till  the  minister 
came  back  from  the  Chamber  to  see  if  there  was  any  new 
manoeuvre  to  invent  and  superintend.  Tlien  this  ministerial 
sybarite  dressed  and  dined,  and  made  the  round  of  twelve  or 
fifteen  salons  between  eight  in  the  evening  and  three  in  the 
morning.  He  talked  with  journalists  at  the  opera,  for  with 
them  he  was  on  the  best  of  terms.  There  had  been  a  con- 
tinual exchange  of  small  services.  He  gave  out  his  false  news 
and  swallowed  down  theirs ;  he  prevented  them  from  attack- 
ing such  and  such  a  minister  on  such  and  such  a  point — it 
would  give  real  pain,  he  said,  to  their  wives  or  mistresses. 

"Say  that  the  proposed  measure  is  no  good,  and  prove  it 
if  you  can  ;  but  you  must  not  say  that  Mariette  danced  badly. 
Put  the  worst  construction,  if  you  like,  upon  our  love  of  our 
neighbor  in  petticoats,  but  do  not  expose  the  pranks  we 
played  in  our  salad  days.  Hang  it  all  !  we  have  all  cut  our 
capers,  and  we  never  know  what  we  may  come  to  as  times 
go.     You  that  are  spicing  your  paragraphs  in  the  *  Constitu- 

tionnel '  may  be  a  minister  yourself  some  of  these  days " 

And  des  Lupeaulx  did  the  journalists  a  good  turn  at  a 
pinch  ;  he  withdrew  obstacles  put  in  the  way  of  producing  a 
piece  ;  presents  or  a  good  dinner  were  forthcoming  at  the 
right  moment,  and  he  would  promise  to  facilitate  the  con- 
clusion of  a  piece  of  business.  He  had  a  liking  for  literature 
and  patronized  the  arts.  He  had  autographs  and  splendid 
albums  and  sketches  and  pictures,  gratis.  And  he  did  artists 
much  service  by  refraining  from  doing  harm,  and  supporting 
them  on  occasions  when  their  vanitv  demanded  a  satisfaction 
which  cost  him  little  or  nothing.  Wherefore  he  was  popuLir 
in  the  world  of  journalists,  artists,  and  actors.     Both  he  and 


232  LES  EMPLOYES. 

they,  to  begin  with,  were  infected  by  the  same  vices  and  the 
same  indolence  ;  and  they  cut  jokes  so  merrily  at  other  peo- 
ple's expense  over  their  cups  or  between  two  opera  dancers — 
how  they  should  not  have  been  friends?  If  des  Lupeaulx  had 
not  been  a  secretary-general,  he  would  have  been  a  journalist ; 
for  which  reason  des  Lupeaulx  never  received  so  much  as  a 
scratch  through  those  fifteen  years,  while  epigram  was  batter- 
ing the  breach  through  which  insurrection  would  enter. 

The  small  fry  of  the  department  used  to  see  him  playing 
at  ball  in  the  garden  with  his  lordship's  children,  and  would 
rack  their  brains  to  discover  what  he  did  and  the  secret  of  his 
influence ;  while  the  talons  rouges,'^  the  courtiers  of  men  in 
office,  looked  upon  les  Lupeaulx  as  the  most  dangerous  kind 
of  Mephistopheles,  and  bowed  the  knee  to  him,  and  paid  him 
back  with  usury  the  flatteries  that  he  himself  was  wont  to  lavish 
on  his  betters.  Indecipherable  as  a  hieroglyph  though  he 
might  be  for  small  men,  the  secretary-general's  uses  were  as 
plain  as  a  proportion  sum  to  those  who  had  any  interest  in  dis- 
covering them.  A  Prince  of  Wagram  on  a  small  scale  to  a  min- 
isterial Napoleon,  he  knew  all  the  secrets  of  party  politics ;  it 
was  his  business  to  sift  advice  and  ideas  and  make  preliminary 
reports  ;  he  also  confirmed  weak-kneed  supporters  ;  he  brought 
in  propositions  and  carried  them  out  and  buried  them ;  he 
uttered  the  "Yes"  or  "  No"  which  the  minister  was  afraid 
to  pronounce.  He  bore  the  brunt  of  the  first  explosion  of 
despair  or  anger;  he  laughed  and  mourned  with  his  chief.  A 
mysterious  link  in  a  chain  that  connected  many  peoples'  in- 
terests with  the  Tuileries,  he  was  discreet  as  the  confessional; 
sometimes  he  knew  everything,  sometimes  he  knew  nothing ; 
sometimes  he  said  for  the  minister  what  the  minister  could  not 
say  for  himself. 

With  this  Hephaestion,  in  short,  the  minister  might  dare  to 
show  himself  as  he  was ;  he  could  lay  aside  his  wig  and  false 
teeth,  state  his  scruples,  put  on  dressing-gown  and  slippers, 

*  Lit.:  Red  heels. 


LES  EMPLOYES.  233 

unbosom  himself  of  his  sins,  and  lay  bare  the  ministerial  con- 
science. 

Not  that  des  Lupeaulx  lay  exactly  on  a  bed  of  roses.  It 
was  his  duty  to  flatter  and  advise,  to  give  advice  in  the  guise 
of  flattery,  and  flattery  in  the  form  of  advice.  Politicians  in 
his  profession  were  apt  to  look  yellow  enough  ;  and  the  con- 
stant habit  of  nodding  to  signify  approval,  or  to  appear  to  do 
so,  gives  a  peculiar  air  to  the  head.  Such  men  would  approve 
indifl'crently  all  that  was  said  before  them.  Their  language 
bristled  with  "buts,"  "howevers,"  and  "nevertheless,"  and 
formulas  such  as  "for  my  own  part"  and  "in  your  place," 
which  pave  the  way  to  a  contrary  opinion  ;  they  were  particu- 
larly fond,  be  it  noted,  of  the  expression  "in  your  place." 

In  person,  Clement  des  Lupeaulx  might  be  described  as  the 
remains  of  a  fine  man  :  five  feet  four  inches  in  height,  not 
unconscionably  fat,  with  a  complexion  warmed  by  good  liv- 
ing, a  jaded  air,  a  powdered  "Titus,"  small  eyeglasses  set  in  a 
slender  frame.  He  was  preeminently  a  blonde,  as  his  hand 
indicated  ;  it  was  a  plump  hand  like  an  old  woman's,  a  little 
too  blunt  perhaps,  and  short  in  the  nails — a  satrap's  hand. 
His  feet  were  not  wanting  in  distinction. 

After  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  des  Lupeaulx  always  wore 
black-silk  open-work  stockings,  low  shoes,  black  trousers,  a 
kerseymere  vest,  an  unscented  cambric  handkerchief,  a  coat 
of  royal  blue,  with  engraved  buttons,  and  a  bunch  of  orders  at 
his  button-hole.  In  the  morning  he  appeared  in  a  short  closely 
buttoned  jacket  (not  inappropriate  to  an  intriguer),  and  a  pair 
of  creaking  boots  hidden  by  gray  trousers.  In  this  costume 
his  bearing  suggested  a  crafty  attorney  rather  than  the  de- 
meanor of  a  minister.  His  eyes  had  grown  glassy  with  the 
use  of  spectacles,  till  he  looked  uglier  than  he  really  was,  if  by 
accident  he  removed  those  aids  to  weak  sight.  Shrewd  judges 
of  human  nature  and  straightforward  men  who  only  feel  at  ease 
when  truth  is  spoken  found  des  Lupeaulx  intolerable.  His 
gracious   manners   skimmed   the   surface   of    falsehood ;    his 


284  LES  EMPLOYES. 

friendly  protestations,  and  the  stale  pretty  speeches  which 
always  seemed  fresh  for  imbeciles,  were  growing  threadbare. 
Any  clear-sighted  man  could  see  that  this  was  a  rotten  plank 
on  which  it  was  most  desirable  not  to  set  foot.  And  when 
the  fair  Celestine  Rabourdin  deigned  to  turn  her  thoughts  to 
making  her  husband's  fortune,  she  gauged  Clement  des  Lu- 
peaulx  pretty  accurately,  and  fell  to  studying  him.  Was  there 
still  a  little  sound  fibre  left  ?  Would  the  thin  lath  bear  if  one 
crossed  ever  so  lightly  over  it,  from  the  office  to  the  division, 
from  eight  thousand  to  twelve  thousand  francs  a  year?  She 
was  no  ordinary  woman.  She  fancied  that  she  could  hold  a 
blackguard  politician  in  play.  And  so  it  came  to  pass  that 
M.  des  Lupeaulx  was  to  some  extent  a  cause  of  the  extravagant 
expenditure  of  the  Rabourdin  household. 

The  Rue  Duphot,  built  in  the  time  of  the  Empire,  is  re- 
markable for  a  good  many  houses  of  elegant  appearance,  and, 
as  a  rule,  their  interiors  are  convenient.  Mme.  Rabourdin's 
flat  was  excellently  arranged,  an  advantage  which  does  much 
to  raise  the  dignity  of  household  life.  From  a  pretty  and 
sufficiently  spacious  antechamber,  lighted  from  the  courtyard, 
you  entered  the  large  drawing-room  which  looked  upon  the 
street.  Rabourdin's  room  and  his  study  lay  at  the  farther  end 
of  this  room  to  the  right,  and  beyond  at  a  right  angle  was  the 
dining-room  which  lay  to  your  left  as  you  entered  the  ante- 
chamber. A  door  to  the  left  of  the  great  drawing-room  gave 
admittance  to  Mme.  Rabourdin's  bedroom  and  dressing-room, 
and  behind,  at  a  right  angle,  was  a  little  room  in  which  her 
daughter  slept.  When  Mme.  Rabourdin  was  At  Home,  her 
bedroom  and  Rabourdin's  cabinet  were  thrown  open.  The 
space  enabled  her  to  receive  visitors  without  drawing  down 
ridicule  upon  herself;  her  receptions  were  not  like  certain  un- 
fortunate attempts  at  evening  parties,  when  the  luxury  is  too 
evidently  assumed  for  the  occasion,  and  involves  a  sacrifice  of 
daily  habits. 

The  drawing-room  had  been  newly  hung  with  yellow  silk 


LES  EMPLOYES.  236 

and  brown  ornaments.  Mme.  Rabourdin's  room  was  deco- 
rated with  real  Eastern  chintz,  and  the  furniture  was  in  the 
rococo  style.  Rabourdin's  study  inherited  the  discarded 
drawing-room  hangings,  which  had  been  cleaned,  and  Le- 
prince's  fine  pictures  adorned  the  walls.  The  late  auctioneer 
had  picked  up  some  enchanting  Eastern  carpets  for  trifling 
sumsj  his  daughter  now  turned  them  to  account  in  the  dining- 
room,  framing  them  in  priceless  old  ebony.  Wonderful  Boule 
sideboards,  also  purchased  by  the  late  auctioneer,  surrounded 
the  walls,  and  in  the  midst  stood  a  tortoise-shell  clock-case 
inlaid  with  gleaming  brass  scroll-work ;  the  first  example  of  a. 
square-shaped  clock  which  reappeared  to  do  honor  to  the 
seventeenth  century.  The  air  was  fragrant  with  the  scent  of 
flowers;  the  rooms  were  tasteful  and  full  of  beautiful  things; 
every  little  thing  in  them  was  a  work  of  art  in  itself;  every- 
thing was  placed  to  advantage,  and  in  appropriate  surround- 
ings. And  Mme.  Rabourdin  herself,  dressed  with  the  sim- 
plicity and  originality  which  artists  can  devise,  looked  as 
though  all  these  pleasant  things  were  a  part  of  her  life  ;  she 
never  spoke  of  them,  she  left  the  charm  of  her  conversation  to 
complete  the  effect  produced  by  the  whole.  Thanks  to  her 
father,  since  rococo  came  into  fashion,  Celestine  had  acquired 
celebrity. 

Des  Lupeaulx  was  accustomed  to  all  sorts  of  splendor,  sham 
and  real,  but  Mme.  Rabourdin's  house  was  a  surprise  to  him. 
An  illustration  may  explain  the  nature  of  the  charm  that 
worked  upon  this  Parisian  Asmodeus.  Suppose  that  a  traveler 
had  seen  all  the  best  beauty  of  Italy,  Brazil,  and  India,  till  he 
was  weary ;  suppose  that  on  his  return  to  France  his  way 
brought  him  past  some  lovely  littk  lake,  the  Lake  of  Orta., 
under  Monte  Rosa,  for  instance,  with  its  island  set  in  the 
midst  of  quiet  waters — a  spot  coyly  hidden  and  left  to  nature. 
a  wild  garden,  a  lonely  but  not  solitary  island  with  its  sliapely 
groves  of  trees  and  picturesquely  placed  statues.  The  shores 
all  round  about  it  are  half-wild,  half-cultivated ;  grandeur  and 


236  LES  EMPLOYES. 

unrest  encircle  it;  but  within  everything  takes  human  propor- 
tions. Here  in  miniature  is  the  world  that  our  traveler  has 
seen  already ;  but  that  world  has  grown  modest  and  pure ;  its 
influences  soothe  his  soul ;  the  delicate  charm  of  the  place 
affects  him  as  music  might ;  it  awakens  all  kinds  of  associa- 
tions and  harmonious  echoes.  It  is  a  hermitage,  and  yet  it  is 
life. 

It  had  happened  a  few  days  previously  that  Mme.  Firmiani 
had  spoken  to  des  Lupeaulx  of  Mme.  Rabourdin.  Mme. 
Firmiani,  one  of  the  most  charming  women  of  the  Faubourg 
Saint-Germain,  liked  Mme.  Rabourdin,  and  used  to  receive 
her  at  her  house,  and  on  this  occasion  she  had  asked  des 
Lupeaulx  simply  for  the  purpose  of  saying:  "Why  do  you 
not  call  on  Mme.  Rabourdin?"  (indicating  Celestine). 
"Her  evening  parties  are  delightful  ;  and,  what  is  more,  her 
dinners  are — better  than  mine."  Des  Lupeaulx  accordingly 
allowed  a  promise  to  be  exacted  from  him  by  the  fair  Mme. 
Rabourdin  (who  raised  her  eyes  to  his  face  for  the  first  time 
as  she  spoke),  and  went  to  the  Rue  Duphot.  Is  there  any 
need  to  say  more  ?  Women  have  but  one  stratagem,  as  Figaro 
cries;  but  it  never  fails. 

Des  Lupeaulx  dined  with  this  mere  chief  clerk,  and  regis- 
tered a  vow  to  go  again.  Thanks  to  the  decorous  and  lady- 
like strategy  of  the  charming  woman  whom  Mme.  Colleville 
dubbed  "the  Celimene  of  the  Rue  Duphot,"  he  had  dined 
there  regularly  every  Friday  for  a  month  past,  and  went  of 
his  own  accord  for  a  cup  of  tea  on  Wednesdays.  Only  dur- 
ing the  last  few  days,  after  much  delicate  and  skillful  trying  of 
the  ground,  Mme.  Rabourdin  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
she  had  found  the  safe  and  solid  spot  in  the  plank.  She  was 
sure  now  of  success.  The  joy  she  felt  in  the  depths  of  her 
soul  can  only  be  understood  in  households  that  know  what  it 
is  to  wait  three  or  four  years  for  promotion,  and  to  plan  out 
an  increase  of  comfort  when  the  fondly  cherished  hope  shall 
be  realized.    What  hardships  that  hope  makes  bearable  !    What 


LES  EMPLOYJ^S.  237 

prayers  are  put  up  to  the  powers  that  be  I  What  visits  paid  to 
gain  the  desired  end  !  At  last,  thanks  to  her  spirited  policy, 
Mme.  Rabourdin  was  to  have  an  income  of  twenty  thousand 
francs  instead  of  eight.     The  hour  had  struck. 

"And  I  shall  have  managed  it  very  well,"  she  told  herself. 
"  I  have  gone  to  some  little  expense,  but  people  are  not  on 
the  lookout  for  hidden  merits  in  these  days ;  on  the  contrary, 
if  a  man  puts  himself  in  evidence  by  going  into  society,  keep- 
ing up  his  connections  and  making  new  ones,  he  is  sure  to  get 
on.  After  all,  the  ministers  and  their  friends  only  take  an 
interest  in  people  whom  they  see,  and  Rabourdin  knows  noth- 
ing of  the  world.  If  I  had  not  got  hold  of  these  three  depu- 
ties, they  might  very  likely  have  wanted  La  Billardiere's 
place ;  but  now  that  they  come  here,  they  would  feel  ashamed 
to  try  to  take  it.  They  will  be  our  supporters,  not  our  rivals. 
I  have  had  to  flirt  a  little  ;  it  is  lucky  for  me  that  there  was 
no  need  to  go  further  than  the  first  stage  with  the  sort  of  folly 
that  amuses  men." 

But  a  contest,  as  yet  unforeseen,  was  about  to  begm  for  the 
place;  and  its  actual  commencement  may  be  dated  from  a 
ministerial  dinner,  followed  by  an  evening  party  of  a  kind 
which  ministers  regard  as  public.  The  minister's  wife  was 
standing  by  the  fire,  and  des  Lupeaulx  was  at  her  side.  As 
he  took  his  cup  of  cofi'ee,  it  occurred  to  him  to  include  Mme. 
Rabourdin  among  the  seven  or  eight  really  remarkable  women 
in  Paris.  He  had  done  this  before;  Mme.  Rabourdin,  like 
Corporal  Trim's  Montero  cap,  was  always  coming  up  in  con- 
versation. 

"Don't  say  too  much  about  her,  my  dear  friend,  or  you 
will  spoil  it  all,"  the  minister's  wife  returned,  half-laugh- 
ingly. 

No  woman  likes  to  listen  to  another  woman's  praises;  they 
one  and  all  keep  a  word  in  reserve,  so  as  to  put  a  little  vinegar 
to  the  panegyric. 


238  LES  EMPLOYES. 

"Poor  La  Billardiere  won't  last  long,"  remarked  his  excel- 
lency; "  Rabourdin  is  the  next  in  succession,  he  is  one  of 
our  cleverest  men.  Our  predecessors  did  not  behave  well  to 
him,  although  one  of  them  owed  his  prefecture  of  police  under 
the  Empire  to  a  certain  personage  who  was  paid  to  use  his 
influence  for  Rabourdin.  Frankly,  my  dear  fellow,  you  are 
still  young  enough  yet  to  be  loved  for  your  own  sake " 

"  If  La  Billardiere's  place  is  Rabourdin's  for  a  certainty,  I 
may  be  believed  if  I  hold  up  his  wife  as  a  remarkable  woman," 
returned  des  Lupeaulx,  the  irony  in  his  excellency's  tones  had 
not  escaped  him  ;  "  still,  if  Madame  la  Comtesse  cares  to  judge 
for  herself " 

"  I  can  ask  her  to  my  next  ball,  that  is  it,  is  it  not  ?  Your 
remarkable  woman  would  come  when  certain  ladies  will  be 
here  to  quiz  us  ;  they  will  hear  '  Madame  Rabourdin  '  an- 
nounced." 

"  But  do  not  they  announce  Madame  Firraiani  at  the  house 
of  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  ?  " 

"  A  born  Cadignan  ! "  the  newly  made  count  broke  in 

quickly,  with  a  withering  glance  at  his  secretary-general. 
Neither  his  excellency  nor  his  wife  was  noble.  A  good  many 
persons  thought  that  something  important  was  going  forward. 
Those  who  had  come  to  ask  favors  kept  to  the  other  end  of 
the  room.  When  des  Lupeaulx  came  out,  the  new-made 
countess  turned  to  her  husband  with:  "Des  Lupeaulx  must  be 
in  love,  I  think." 

"  Then  it  will  be  for  the  first  time  in  his  life,"  returned  the 
minister,  shrugging  his  shoulders,  as  who  should  say  that  des 
Lupeaulx  was  not  taken  up  with  such  trifles. 

Then  the  minister  beheld  a  deputy  of  the  Right  Centre  en- 
tering the  room,  and  left  his  wife  to  coax  over  a  faltering  vote. 
But  it  so  happened  that  the  deputy  was  overwhelmed  by  an 
unforeseen  disaster,  and  wanted  to  secure  the  minister's  influ- 
ence by  coming  to  announce  in  strict  confidence  that  he  would 
be  forced  to  send  in  his  resignation  in  a  few  days'  time.     And 


LES  EMPLOYES.  239 

his  excellency,  warned  in  time,  could  get  his  batteries  into 
play  before  the  Opposition  had  a  chance. 

The  minister  (which  is  to  say,  des  Lupeaulx)  had  included 
among  the  dinner  guests  a  personage  who  is  practically  ap- 
pointed for  life  in  every  government  department.  This  indi- 
vidual, being  not  a  little  puzzled  to  know  what  to  do  with 
himself,  and  anxious  to  give  himself  a  countenance,  happened 
to  stand  planted  on  both  feet  with  his  legs  close  together,  very 
much  after  the  manner  of  an  Egyptian  terminal.  He  was  wait- 
ing, near  the  hearth,  for  an  opportunity  of  expressing  his  thanks 
to  the  secretary-general ;  indeed,  the  abrupt  retreat  made  by 
that  worthy  took  him  by  surprise  just  as  he  was  about  to 
formulate  his  little  compliment.  The  functionary  in  question 
was,  in  fact,  none  other  than  the  cashier  of  the  department, 
the  one  employe  who  never  shook  in  his  shoes  over  a  change 
of  government.  In  those  days  the  Chamber  did  not  higgle 
over  the  budget  as  it  is  wont  to  do  in  the  present  degenerate 
times ;  it  did  not  cut  down  the  emoluments  of  ofifice  to  effect 
what  maybe  called  "cheese-paring  economies"  in  kitchen 
phraseology.  Every  minister  on  coming  into  ofifice  received 
a  fixed  sum  for  ''expenses  of  removal."  It  costs  as  much, 
alas  !  to  come  in  as  to  go  out  of  office  ;  and  the  installation 
entails  expenses  of  every  sort  and  description  which  need  not 
be  recorded  here.  The  allowance  for  expenses  used  to  consist 
of  twenty-five  pretty  little  thousand-franc  notes. 

When  the  ordinance  appeared  in  the  "  Moniteur,"  while 
all  officials,  great  and  small,  were  grouped  about  their  stoves 
or  open  hearths,  as  the  case  might  be,  revolving  the  questions : 
"  What  is  this  one  going  to  do  ?     Will  he  increase  the  number 

of  clerks  ?     Or  will  he  dismiss  two  and  take  on  three? " 

while  all  this  was  going  forward,  I  say,  the  placid  cashier 
used  to  bring  out  twenty-five  bills  and  pin  them  together, 
engraving  a  joyful  expression  meanwhile  upon  his  beadle's 
countenance.  This  done,  he  skipped  up  the  staircase  to 
the  residence,   and   was   admitted    to  his    excellency's  pres- 


240  LES  EMPLOYES. 

ence  the  first  thing  in  the  morning ;  for  servants  are  wont 
to  confuse  the  notions  of  the  power  of  money  with  the 
custodian  thereof,  the  cash-box  with  its  contents,  the  idea  and 
its  outward  and  visible  manifestation.  The  cashier,  therefore, 
always  came  upon  the  ministerial  couple  in  that  first  blush  of 
rapture  when  a  statesman  is  in  a  benign  humor,  and  a  good 
fellow  for  the  nonce. 

In  reply  to  the  minister's  inquiry  :  "  What  do  you  want  ?  " 
the  cashier  produced  his  bits  of  paper,  with  a  speech  to  the 
effect  that  he  had  hastened  to  bring  his  excellency  the  cus- 
tomary indemnity ;  he  then  explained  the  why  and  wherefore 
of  the  allowance  to  the  astonished  and  delighted  lady,  who 
never  failed  to  take  some  portion,  and  not  infrequently  took 
the  whole.  An  indemnity  for  expenses  of  removal  comes 
within  the  province  of  housekeeping.  The  cashier  turned 
his  compliment,  slipping  in  a  few  phrases  for  the  minister's 
benefit.  "  If  his  excellency  vouchsafed  to  confirm  him  in 
his  appointment,  if  he  was  satisfied  with  the  purely  mechanical 
service  which,  etc.,  etc."  And  as  the  man  who  brings  twenty- 
five  thousand  francs  is  always  a  good  public  servant,  the 
cashier  never  failed  to  receive  the  desired  confirmation  in  a 
post  whence  he  watched  ministers  come  and  go  and  come 
again  for  a  quarter  of  a  century.  Then  he  would  put  himself 
at  madame's  disposal ;  he  would  bring  the  thirteen  thousand 
francs  every  month  at  the  convenient  time,  a  little  earlier  or 
later  as  required,  and  thus,  to  use  the  ancient  monastic  ex- 
pression, "  he  kept  a  vote  in  the  chapter." 

The  Sieur  Saillard  had  been  a  book-keeper  at  the  Treasury 
while  the  Treasury  kept  books  on  a  system  of  double-entry ; 
but  the  plan  was  afterward  given  up,  and  they  gave  him  a 
cashier's  place  by  way  of  compensation.  Book-keeping  was  his 
one  strong  point ;  he  was  little  good  at  anything  else.  He 
was  a  burly,  fat  old  gentleman,  round  as  a  figure  o,  and 
simple  in  the  extreme ;  he  walked  like  an  elephant  at  a 
measured  pace  to  and  from  the  Place  Royale,  where  he  lived 


LES  EMPLOYES.  241 

in  a  house  of  his  own.  He  had  a  companion  on  his  daily  way, 
in  the  shape  of  his  son-in-law,  M.  Isidore  Baudoyer,  the  chief 
clerk  in  M.  de  la  Billardiere's  division,  and  in  consequence 
Rabourdin's  colleague.  Baudoyer  had  married  Saillard's  only 
daughter,  Elizabeth,  and,  naturally,  took  up  his  abode  on  a 
floor  above  his  father-in-law.  Nobody  in  the  whole  depart- 
ment doubted  Saillard's  stupidity,  but  nobody  at  the  same 
time  knew  how  far  his  stupidity  would  go  ;  it  was  so  dense 
that  no  one  could  insinuate  a  question  into  it ;  it  had  no 
hollow  sounding  spots:  it  absorded  everything,  and  gave 
nothing  out.  Bixiou  (a  clerk  of  whom  mention  will  presently 
be  made)  had  drawn  a  caricature  of  the  cashier,  a  bewigged 
head  surmounting  an  egg,  with  two  tiny  legs  beneath,  and 
the  inscription — "Born  to  pay  and  receive  money  without 
making  a  mistake.  A  little  less  luck,  and  he  would  have  been 
a  porter  at  the  Bank  of  France ;  a  little  more  ambition,  and 
the  Government  would  have  thanked  him  for  his  services." 

To  return  to  the  minister.  At  this  present  moment  he 
was  looking  fixedly  at  his  cashier,  much  as  he  might  have 
gazed  at  a  hat-peg  or  at  the  ceiling,  without  imagining,  that 
is  to  say,  that  the  peg  could  hear  what  he  said  or  understand 
a  single  word. 

"I  am  so  much  the  more  anxious  that  everything  should 
be  arranged  with  the  prefect  with  the  utmost  secrecy,"  his 
excellency  was  saying  to  the  retiring  deputy,  "because  des 
Lupeaulx  has  some  idea  of  the  kind.  His  bit  of  a  place  is 
somewhere  in  your  part  of  the  country,  and  we  don't  want 
him  in  the  House." 

"  He  has  not  the  electoral  qualifications,  and  he  is  not  old 
enough,"  said  the  deputy. 

"That  is  so,  but  you  know  how  Casimir  Perier  decided 
with  regard  to  the  age  limit.  As  to  annual  income,  des  Lu- 
peaulx has  something,  though  it  doesn't  amount  to  much  ;  but 
the  law  made  no  provision  for  increase  of  landed  property, 
and  he  might  buy  more.  Committees  give  a  good  foothold 
16 


242  LES  EMPLOYES. 

to  a  deputy  of  the  Centre,  and  we  could  not  openly  oppose 
the  good-will  that  the  people  would  show  to  serve  our  dear 
friend." 

"  But  where  would  he  find  the  money  to  buy  land?" 

"  How  did  Manuel  become  the  possessor  of  a  house  in 
Paris?"  retorted  the  minister. 

The  hat-peg  meanwhile  was  listening,  and  listening  very 
reluctantly.  The  two  men  had  lowered  their  voices  and  spoke 
rapidly  ,  but  every  sound,  by  some  as  yet  unexplained  law  of 
acoustics,  reached  Saillard's  ears.  And  what  were  the  feel- 
ings of  that  worthy,  do  you  suppose,  while  he  listened  to  these 
political  confidences?  He  experienced  the  most  poignant 
alarm.  There  are  guileless  people  who  are  reduced  to  despair 
if  they  appear  to  be  listening  to  remarks  that  they  are  not 
intended  to  hear,  if  they  intrude  where  they  are  not  wanted, 
or  seem  to  be  inquisitive  when  they  are  really  discreet ;  and 
Saillard  was  one  of  them.  He  glided  over  the  carpet  in  such 
a  sort  that  when  the  minister  became  aware  of  his  existence, 
he  was  half-way  across  the  room.  Saillard  was  a  fanatical 
official.  He  was  incapable  of  the  slightest  indiscretion.  If 
his  excellency  had  but  known  that  the  cashier  was  in  his 
counsel,  he  would  have  had  no  need  to  do  more  than  say 
"  Mum."  Saillard  saw  that  the  rooms  were  beginning  to  fill 
with  courtiers  of  office,  went  down  to  a  coach  hired  by  the 
hour  for  such  costly  occasions  as  this,  and  returned  to  the 
Place  Rovale. 

While  old  Saillard  was  making  his  way  across  Paris,  his 
beloved  Elizabeth  and  his  son-in-law  were  engaged  in  playing 
a  virtuous  game  of  boston  with  the  Abbe  Gaudron,  their 
director,  and  a  neighbor  or  two.  Another  visitor  was  also 

present.  This  was  a  certain  Martin  Falleix,  a  brass-founder  of 
the  Faubourg  Saint-Antoine,  whom  Saillard  had  set  up  in 
business.  Falleix,  an  honest  Auvcrgnat,  had  come  to  Paris 
with  his  caldron  on  his  back,  and  promptly  found  work  with 
the  Brezacs,  a  firm  that  bought  old  chateaux  to  pull  down. 


LES  EMPLOYES.  243 

At  the  age  of  twenty-seven,  Martin  Falleix,  being  eager,  like 
every  one  else,  to  get  on  in  life,  had  the  good  fortune  to  be 
taken,  into  partnership  by  M.  Saillard.  He  was  to  be  the 
active  partner,  he  was  to  exploit  a  patent  invention  in  brass- 
founding  (gold  medal  awarded  at  the  Exhibition  in  1825). 

Mme.  Baudoyer,  whose  only  daughter  was  just  at  the  tail- 
end  of  her  twelfth  year  (to  quote  old  Saillard),  had  views  of 
her  own  upon  Falleix,  a  thick-set,  swarthy  young  fellow, 
active,  sharp-witted,  and  honest.  She  was  forming  him.  Ac- 
cording to  her  ideas,  the  education  consisted  in  teaching  the 
good  Auvergnat  to  play  boston,  to  hold  his  cards  properly,  to 
allow  no  one  to  see  his  hand  ;  to  shave,  to  wash  his  hands  with 
coarse  common  soap  before  he  came  to  them  ;  to  refrain  from 
swearing,  to  speak  French  as  they  spoke  it,  to  brush  his  hair 
erect  instead  of  flattening  it  down,  and  to  discard  shoes  for 
boots,  and  sackcloth  shirts  for  calico.  Only  a  week  since, 
Elizabeth  Baudoyer  succeeded  in  persuading  Falleix  to  give 
up  two  huge  flat  earrings  like  cask-hoops. 

"You  are  going  too  far,  Madame  Baudoyer,"  said  he,  as 
she  rejoiced  over  this  sacrifice;  "you  are  getting  too  much 
ascendency  over  me.  You  make  me  brush  my  teeth  (which 
loosens  them) ;  before  long  you  will  make  me  brush  my  nails 
and  curl  my  hair,  and  that  will  never  do.  They  don't  like 
foppery  in  our  line  of  business." 

Elizabeth  Baudoyer,  7iee  Saillard,  was  a  type  that  always 
escapes  the  artist  by  the  very  fact  that  it  is  so  commonplace. 
Yet,  nevertheless,  such  figures  ought  to  be  sketched,  for  they 
represent  the  lower  middle  class  in  Paris,  the  rank  just  above 
the  well-to-do  artisan.  Their  merits  are  almost  defects,  and 
there  is  nothing  lovable  about  their  faults ;  but  their  way  of 
life,  humdrum  and  uninteresting  though  it  is,  does  not  lack  a 
certain  character  of  its  own. 

Elizabeth  had  a  peculiar,  puny,  unwholesome  look,  which 
was  not  good  to  see.  She  was  barely  four  feet  high,  and  so  thin 
that  her  waist  measured  scarcely  half  an  ell.     Ilcr  thin  features 


244  LES  EMPLOYES. 

were  crowded  into  the  middle  of  her  face ;  a  certain  vague 
resemblance  to  a  weasel  was  the  result.  She  was  tliirty  years 
old  and  more,  but  she  looked  more  like  a  girl  of  sixteen  or 
seventeen.  There  was  little  brightness  in  the  china-blue  eyes 
under  heavy  eyelids  and  lashes  that  met  the  arch  of  eyebrows. 
Everything  about  Elizabeth  was  insignificant ;  she  had  pale 
flax-colored  hair  ;  the  flat  shiny  surfaces  of  her  forehead  seemed 
to  catch  the  light ;  her  complexion  was  gray,  almost  livid  in 
hue.  The  lower  part  of  her  face  was  triangular  rather  than 
oval  in  shape,  but  her  features,  generally  speaking,  were 
crooked,  and  the  outlines  irregular.  Lastly,  she  had  a  sub- 
acid voice,  with  a  pretty  enough  range  of  intonations.  Eliza- 
beth Baudoyer  was  the  very  type  of  the  lower  middle-class 
housewife  who  counsels  her  husband  at  night  from  her  pillow ; 
there  is  no  merit  in  her  virtues,  no  motive  in  her  ambition,  it 
is  simply  a  development  of  domestic  egoism.  If  Elizabeth 
had  lived  in  the  provinces,  she  would  have  tried  to  round  out 
the  property ;  as  her  husband  happened  to  be  in  a  Govern- 
ment office,  she  wanted  advancement.  The  story  of  Eliza- 
beth's childhood  and  girlhood  will  bring  the  whole  woman 
before  you ;  it  is  the  history  of  the  Saillard  couple. 

M.  Saillard  had  married  the  daughter  of  a  second-hand 
furniture  dealer,  one  Bidault,  who  set  up  business  under  the 
arcades  of  the  Great  Market.  M.  and  Mme.  Saillard  had  a 
hard  struggle  in  those  early  days ;  but  now,  after  thirty-three 
years  of  married  life  and  twenty-nine  of  work  at  the  office,  the 
fortune  of  "the  Saillards  "  (as  they  were  called  by  their  ac- 
quaintances) consisted  of  sixty  thousand  francs  in  Falleix's 
business;  the  big  house  in  the  Place  Royale,  purchased  for 
forty  thousand  francs  in  1804;  and  thirty-six  thousand  livres 
paid  down  as  their  daughter's  marriage-portion.  About  fifty 
thousand  francs  of  their  capital  had  come  to  them  on  the 
death  of  Widow  Bidault,  Mme.  Saillard's  mother.  Saillard's 
post  had  brought  in  a  steady  income  of  four  thousand  five 
hundred  francs;  no  one  coveted  his  place  for  a  long  while. 


LES  EMPLOYES.  245 

because  there  were  no  prospects  of  promotion.  This  money 
had  been  saved  up,  sou  by  sou,  by  sordid  frugality,  and  very 
carefully  put  out  to  interest.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  Sail- 
lard's  knew  of  but  one  way  of  investing  money  ;  they  used  to 
take  their  savings,  five  thousand  francs  at  a  time,  to  their 
notary,  M.  Sorbier,  Cardot's  predecessor,  and  he  arranged  to 
lend  it  on  mortgages.  They  were  always  careful  to  take  the 
first  mortgage,  with  a  further  guarantee  secured  on  the  wife's 
property  if  the  borrower  were  a  married  man. 

At  this  point  of  their  history  their  big  house  was  worth  a 
hundred  thousand  francs,  and  brought  them  in  eight  thousand. 
Falleix  paid  seven  per  cent,  on  his  capital  before  reckoning 
up  the  profits,  which  were  equally  divided.  Altogether,  the 
Saillards  possessed  an  income  of  seventeen  thousand  francs  at 
the  least.  To  have  the  cross  and  retire  on  a  pension  was  old 
Saillard's  one  ambition. 

Elizabeth's  youth  had  been  spent  in  continual  drudgery  in 
a  family  with  just  such  laborious  habits  and  narrow  ideas. 
Great  was  the  discussion  before  the  purchase  of  a  new  hat  for 
Saillard ;  the  career  of  a  coat  was  reckoned  by  years  ;  um- 
brellas were  carefully  hung  up  from  a  brass  ring. 

No  repairs  had  been  made  in  the  house  since  1804.  The 
Saillards'  first-floor  flat  was  precisely  in  the  condition  in  which 
the  previous  owners  left  it ;  but  the  gilding  had  departed  from 
the  frames  of  the  pier-glasses,  and  the  painted  friezes  over  the 
doors  were  almost  invisible  beneath  the  accumulated  grime  of 
years.  The  great  spacious  rooms,  with  carved  marble  chimney- 
pieces  and  ceilings  worthy  of  Versailles,  were  filled  with  the 
furniture  left  by  the  Widow  Bidault.  This  consisted  of  easy- 
chairs  of  walnut-wood,  covered  with  tapestry,  rosewood  sets . 
of  drawers,  old-fashioned  stands  with  brass  rims  and  cracked, 
white  marble-tops  ;  and  a  chaos  of  bargains,  in  short,  picked 
up  by  the  furniture-dealer  in  the  Great  Market.  Among  these 
was  a  superb  Boule  bureau,  to  which  fashion  had  not  yet  re- 
stored its  proper  value.     The  pictures  had  been  selected  en- 


246  LES  EMPLOYES. 

tirely  for  their  handsome  frames;  the  chinaware  was  distinctly 
heterogeneous;  a  set  of  splendid  Oriental  china  dessert  plates, 
for  instance,  was  eked  out  with  porcelain  from  every  possible 
factory ;  the  silver  was  a  collection  of  odd  lots  ;  the  cut-glass 
old-fashioned  ;  the  table  linen  fine  damask.  They  slept  in 
a  tomb-shaped  bedstead  with  chintz  curtains  hung  from  a 
coronal. 

Amid  all  these  relics  of  the  past,  Mme.  Saillard  used  to  live 
in  her  low,  modern  mahogany  armchair  with  her  feet  on  a 
foot-warmer,  every  hole  in  the  latter  article  of  furniture  charred 
and  blackened.  Her  chair  was  drawn  up  to  the  grate,  where 
a  heap  of  dead  ashes  took  the  place  of  a  fire.  On  the  mantel 
there  stood  a  clock-case,  one  or  two  old-fashioned  bronze  or- 
naments, and  some  flowered  candle-sconces.  These  last  were 
empty,  however.  Mme.  Saillard  had  a  martinet  for  her  own 
use,  a  small,  flat  brass  candlestick  with  a  long  handle ;  and  the 
candles  she  used  were  long  tallow  dips  that  guttered  as  they 
burned.  In  Mme.  Saillard's  countenance,  in  spite  of  wrinkles, 
you  could  read  willfulness,  severity,  and  narrow-mindedness  ; 
together  with  a  fair  and  square  honesty,  a  pitiless  creed,  an 
undisguised  stinginess,  and  the  quiet  of  a  clear  conscience. 
You  may  see  faces  thus  composed  by  nature  among  portraits 
of  the  wives  of  Flemish  burgomasters  ;  but  these  latter  are  clad 
in  splendid  velvets  and  precious  stuffs.  Mme.  Saillard  wore 
no  such  robes.  She  adhered  to  the  old-fashioned  garments 
known  as  cottes  in  Picardv  and  Touraines,  and  as  cotillons  o\tx 
the  rest  of  France — a  petticoat  gathered  in  thick  overlying 
pleats  at  the  back  and  sides.  The  upper  part  of  her  person 
was  buttoned  into  a  short  jacket,  another  bit  of  old-time  cos- 
tume, like  the  butterfly  caps  and  high-heeled  shoes  which  she 
still  continued  to  wear.  She  knitted  stockings  for  herself  and 
her  husband  and  for  an  uncle  as  well.  And,  although  she  was 
fifty-seven  years  old  and  fairly  entitled  to  live  at  ease  after 
her  laborious  struggles  with  domestic  economy,  she  used  to 
knit,  after  the  manner  of  countrywomen,  as  she  talked  or  went 


LES  EMPLOYES.  247 

about  the  house,  or  strolled  round  the  garden,  or  took  a  peep 
into  the  kitchen  to  see  how  things  were  going  there. 

Niggardliness,  at  first  compelled  by  painful  necessity,  had 
become  a  habit  with  the  Saillards.  When  old  Saillard  came 
home  from  the  office  he  took  off  his  coat  and  worked  in  his 
garden.  It  was  a  pretty  garden  divided  off  from  the  yard  by 
an  iron  railing  ;  he  had  reserved  it  and  kept  it  in  order  him- 
self. Elizabeth  had  gone  marketing  with  her  mother  in  the 
morning  ;  and,  indeed,  the  two  women  did  all  the  work  of  the 
house.  The  mother  could  cook  a  duck  with  turnips  to  admi- 
ration ;  but  old  Saillard  maintained  that  for  serving  up  the 
remains  of  a  leg  of  mutton  with  onions,  Elizabeth  had  not  her 
equal.  "  You  could  eat  your  uncle  that  way  and  never  find  it 
out." 

As  soon  as  Elizabeth  could  hold  a  needle,  her  mother  made 
her  mend  her  father's  clothes  and  the  house  linen.  The  girl  was 
always  busy  as  a  servant  over  a  servant's  work  ;  she  never  went 
out  alone.  They  lived  but  a  few  paces  away  from  the  Boule- 
vard du  Temple ;  consequently  the  Galte,  the  Ambigu-Com- 
ique,  and  Franconi's  were  close  at  hand,  and  the  Porte 
Saint-Martin  not  very  far  away,  yet  Elizabeth  had  never  been 
"  to  the  play."  When  the  fancy  took  her  "to  see  what  it 
was  like,"  M.  Baudoyer,  by  way  of  doing  things  handsomely, 
took  her  to  the  opera,  so  that  she  might  see  the  finest  play  of 
all  (M.  Gaudron  having,  of  course,  given  permission).  They 
were  giving  "  Le  Laboureur  Chinois  "  at  that  time.  Elizabeth 
thought  ''  the  play  "  as  dull  as  ditch-water.  She  did  not  want 
to  go  again.  On  Sundays,  after  she  had  gone  four  times  to 
and  fro  between  the  Place  Royale  and  the  Church  of  St.  Paul 
(for  her  mother  saw  that  she  was  punctual  in  the  practice  of 
religious  duties  and  precepts),  her  father  and  mother  took  her 
to  the  Cafe  Turc,  where  they  seated  themselves  on  chairs 
placed  between  a  barrier  and  the  wall.  The  Cafe  Turc  at  that 
time  was  the  resort  of  all  the  beauty  and  fashion  of  the  Marais, 
the  Faubourg  Saint-Antoine,  and  adjacent  neighborhoods  ;  the 


248  LES  EMPLOYES. 

Saillards  always  went  early  to  secure  their  favorite  place,  and 
then  amused  themselves  by  watching  the  passers-by. 

Elizabeth  had  never  worn  anything  but  print  gowns  in 
summer,  and  merino  in  winter.  She  made  her  own  dresses. 
Her  mother  only  allowed  her  twenty  francs  a  month  ;  but  her 
father  was  very  fond  of  her,  and  tempered  this  rigor  with 
occasional  presents.  Of  "profane  literature,"  as  the  Abbe 
Gaudron  (curate  of  St.  Paul's  and  the  family  oracle)  was 
pleased  to  qualify  it,  Elizabeth  knew  nothing  whatsoever. 
The  system  had  borne  its  fruits.  Compelled  to  find  an  outlet 
for  her  feelings  in  some  passion,  Elizabeth  grew  greedy  of 
gain  ;  not  that  she  was  lacking  in  intelligence  or  perspicacity, 
but  ignorance  and  her  creed  had  shut  her  in  with  a  circle  of 
brass.  She  had  nothing  on  which  to  exercise  her  faculties, 
save  the  most  trivial  affairs  of  daily  life  ;  and  as  she  had  few 
things  to  think  about,  the  whole  force  of  her  nature  was 
brought  to  bear  on  the  matter  in  hand.  Her  natural  intelli- 
gence, being  shackled  by  her  religious  opinions,  could  only 
exert  itself  within  the  limits  imposed  by  casuistry,  and  casu- 
istry becomes  a  very  storehouse  of  subtleties  from  which  self- 
interest  selects  shifts  and  evasions.  Elizabeth  was  quite  capa- 
ble of  asking  her  neighbor  to  do  evil  that  she  herself  might 
reap  the  full  benefit  thereof;  resembling  in  this  respect 
various  saintly  personages  in  whom  religion  has  not  altogether 
extinguished  ambition — with  these,  indeed,  she  had  other 
points  in  common  ;  she  was  relentless  in  pursuit  of  her  end, 
underhand  in  her  measures.  When  offended,  she  watched 
her  antagonists  with  feline  patience  till  she  had  accomplished 
a  complete  and  cold-blooded  revenge  to  be  put  down  to  the 
account  of  Providence. 

Until  the  time  of  Elizabeth's  marriage,  the  Saillards  saw 
no  visitors  except  the  Abbe  Gaudron,  the  Auvergnat  priest, 
nominated  to  the  curacy  of  St.  Paul's  since  the  reestablish- 
ment  of  religious  worship.  This  churchman  had  been  friendly 
with  the  late  Mme.  Bidault.     Mme.  Saillard's  paternal  uncle 


LES  EMPLOYES.  249 

was  also  an  occasional  visitor.  He  had  been  a  paper  mer- 
chant, but  he  had  retired  in  the  year  11.  of  the  Republic,  at 
the  age  of  sixty-nine.  He  never  came  except  on  Sundays, 
because  no  business  could  be  done  on  that  day. 

As  for  Bidault's  personal  appearance,  there  was  not  much 
room  in  the  little  old  man's  olive-hued  visage  for  anything 
but  a  red  bibulous  nose  and  two  little  vulture-like  slits  of  eyes. 
His  grizzled  locks  were  allowed  to  hang  loose  under  the  brim 
of  his  cocked  hat.  The  tabs  of  his  knee-breeches  projected 
grotesquely  beyond  the  buckles.  He  wore  cotton  stockings 
knitted  by  his  niece  (/<2  petite  Saillard  he  used  to  call  her), 
thick  shoes  with  silver  buckles,  and  a  greatcoat  of  many 
colors.  Altogether  he  looked  very  much  like  the  sexton- 
beadle-bellringer-gravedigger-chanter  of  some  village  church  ; 
a  sort  of  person  whom  you  might  take  for  some  freak  of  the 
caricaturist,  until  you  met  him  in  real  life.  Even  at  this  day 
he  used  to  come  on  foot  to  dine  with  them,  and  walk  back 
afterward  to  the  Rue  Grenetat,  where  he  lived  on  a  fourth 
floor.  Bidault  was  a  bill-discounter.  The  Quartier  Saint- 
Martin,  the  scene  of  his  professional  activity,  had  nicknamed 
him  Gigonnet,  from  his  peculiar  jerky,  feverish  manner  of 
picking  his  way  in  the  streets.  M.  Bidault  went  into  the  bill- 
discounting  line  in  the  year  H.  of  the  Republic  with  a  Dutch- 
man, the  Sieur  Werbrust,  a  crony  of  Gobseck's,  for  his  partner. 

These,  it  has  been  said,  were  at  one  time  the  Saillards'  only 
visitors;  but  afterward,  old  Saillard  struck  up  an  acquaint- 
ance with  M.  and  Mme.  Transon  in  the  church-warden's  pew 
at  St.  Paul's.  The  Transons,  wholesale  earthenware  dealers 
in  the  Rue  de  Lesdiguieres,  took  an  interest  in  Elizabeth,  and 
it  was  with  a  view  to  finding  a  husband  for  her  that  they 
introduced  young  Isidore  Baudoyer  to  the  Saillards.  The 
good  understanding  between  M.  and  Mme.  Baudoyer  and 
the  Saillard  family  was  confirmed  by  Gigonnet's  approbation. 
He  had  employed  Mme.  Baudoyer's  brother,  the  Sieur  Mitral, 
as  his  bailiff  for  many  years;  and  about  this  time  Mitral  was 

X 


250  LES  EMPLOYES. 

thinking  of  retiring  to  a  pretty  house  at  Ile-Adam.  M.  and 
Mmc.  Baudoyer,  Isidore's  father  and  mother,  respectable 
leatlicr-drcssers  in  the  Rue  Censier,  had  put  by  a  little  money 
year  by  year  in  a  jog-trot  business.  When  they  had  married 
their  only  son  and  made  over  to  him  fifty  thousand  francs, 
they  also  thought  of  going  to  live  in  the  country ;  it  was  they, 
indeed,  who  had  fixed  upon  Ile-Adam,  and  attracted  Mitral 
to  that  spot ;  but  they  still  came  frequently  to  Paris,  where 
they  had  kept  a.  pied-a-terre^  in  the  house  in  the  Rue  Censier 
which  Isidore  received  on  his  marriage.  The  Baudoyers  had 
an  income  of  a  thousand  crowns  after  providing  for  their  son. 

M.  Mitral,  owner  of  a  sinister-looking  wig,  and  a  visage  the 
color  of  Seine  water,  illuminated  by  eyes  of  the  hue  of  Spanish 
snuff",  was  as  cool  as  a  well-rope  ;  he  was  a  secretive,  mouse- 
like creature ;  no  one  knew  about  his  money ;  but  he  probably 
did  in  his  corner  as  Gigonnet  did  in  the  Quartier  Saint-Martin. 

But  if  the  family  circle  grew  wider,  their  ideas  and  habits 
underwent  no  corresponding  change.  They  kept  all  the 
family  festivals  ;  birthdays  and  wedding-days ;  all  the  saints' 
days  of  father  and  mother,  son-in-law,  daughter,  and  grand- 
daughter ;  Easter,  Christmas,  New  Year's  Day,  and  Twelfth 
Night.  And  as  these  occasions  always  demanded  a  great 
sweeping  and  general  cleaning  of  the  house,  they  might  be 
said  to  combine  practical  utility  with  the  joys  of  domestic 
life.  Then  out  came  the  presents  ;  useful  gifts  produced  with 
much  pomp  and  circumstance  and  accompaniment  of  bouquets  ; 
a  pair  of  silk  stockings  or  a  velvet  skull-cap  for  Saillard  ;  gold 
earrings  or  plate  for  Elizabeth  or  her  husband  (for  whom 
they  were  making  up  a  complete  service  by  degrees),  or  a  new 
silk  petticoat  for  Mme.  Saillard,  who  kept  the  stuff"  laid  by  in 
the  piece.  And  before  the  presents  were  given,  the  recipient 
was  always  made  to  sit  in  an  armchair,  while  the  rest  bade 
him — 

"  Guess  what  we  are  going  to  give  you  !  " 
*  A  temporary  domicile. 


LES  EMPLOYES.  251 

Finally,  they  sat  down  to  a  grand  dinner,  which  lasted  for 
five  hours.  M.  Gaudron*  was  invited,  and  Falleix  and  Ra- 
bourdin  and  M.  Gothard  (formerly  M.  Baudoyer's  deputy), 
and  M.  Bataille,  captain  of  the  company  in  which  Baudoyerand 
his  father-in-law  were  enrolled.  M.  Cardot  had  a  standing 
invitation,  but,  like  Rabourdin,  he  only  appeared  one  time  in 
six.  They  used  to  sing  over  the  dessert,  and  embrace  each 
other  with  enthusiasm  amid  wishes  for  all  possible  good  luck ; 
and  then  the  presents  were  on  view,  and  all  the  guests  must 
give  their  opinion  of  them.  On  the  day  of  the  velvet  skull- 
cap, Saillard  wore  the  article  in  question  on  his  head  during 
the  dessert,  to  the  general  satisfaction.  In  the  evening  more 
acquaintances  came  in,  and  a  dance  followed.  A  single  violin 
did  duty  for  a  band  for  a  long  while  ;  but  for  the  last  six  years, 
M.  Godard,  a  great  amateur  of  the  flute,  had  contributed  the 
shrill  sounds  of  a  piccolo  to  the  festivity.  The  cook,  Mme. 
Baudoyer's  general  servant,  and  old  Catherine,  Mme.  Sail- 
lard's  maid,  stood  looking  on  in  the  doorway  with  the  porter 
and  his  wife  ;  and  a  crown  of  three  livres  was  given  to  them 
to  buy  wine  and  coffee. 

The  whole  family  circle  regarded  Baudoyer  and  Saillard 
as  men  of  transcendent  ability ;  they  were  in  the  employ  of 
the  Government ;  they  had  made  their  way  by  sheer  merit ; 
they  worked  in  concert  with  the  minister,  so  it  was  said  ;  they 
owed  their  success  entirely  to  their  talents.  Baudoyer  was 
generally  considered  to  be  the  more  capable  man  of  the  two, 
because  his  work  as  chief  clerk  was  allowed  to  be  more  ardu- 
ous and  complex  than  book-keeping.  And  beside,  Isidore  had 
had  the  genius  to  study,  although  he  was  the  son  of  a  leather- 
dresser  in  the  Rue  Censier  ;  he  had  the  audacity  also  to  give 
up  his  father's  business  to  enter  a  Government  office,  and  had 
reached  a  high  position.  As  he  was  a  man  of  few  words,  he 
was  supposed  to  be  a  deep  thinker  ;  "  he  would  perhaps  rep- 
resent the  eighth  arrondissement  some  day,"  said  the  Tran- 
*  See  "  Ilonorine  "  and  "A  Start  in  Life." 


262  LES  EMPLOYES. 

sons.  And  as  often  as  Gigonnet  heard  this  kind  of  talk,  he 
would  purse  up  lips  that  were  sufficiently  pinched  already,  and 
glance  at  his  grand-niece,  Elizabeth. 

As  to  physique,  Isidore  was  a  big  heavy  man  of  seven-and- 
thirty  ;  he  perspired  easily ;  his  head  suggested  hydrocephalus. 
It  was  an  enormous  head  covered  with  closely  cropped  chest- 
nut hair,  and  joined  to  the  neck  by  a  thick  fleshy  roll  that 
filled  up  his  coat  collar.     He  had  the  arms  of  a  Hercules,  the 
hands  of  a  Domitian,  and  a  waist  girth  which  sober  living 
kept  "within  the  limits  of  the  majestic,"   to  quote  Brillat- 
Savarin.     In  face  he  was  very  much  like  the  Emperor  Alex- 
ander.    You  recognized  the  Tartar  type  in  the  little  eyes,  in 
a  nose  depressed  in  the  middle  and  raised  at  the  tip,  in  the 
chilly  lips  and  short  chin.     His  forehead  was  narrow  and  low. 
Isidore  was  of  lymphatic  temperament,  but  time  had  no  whit 
abated  an  excessive  conjugal  attachment.     In  spite  of  his  like- 
ness to  the  handsome  Russian  Emperor  and  the  terrific  Domi- 
tian, Isidore  Baudoyer  was  nothing  but  a  slave  of  red-tape  ;  he 
was  not  very  fit  for  the  post  of  chief  clerk,  but  he  was  thor- 
oughly accustomed  to  the  routine  work,  and  his  vacuity  lay 
beneath  such  a  thick  covering  that  no  scalpel  as  yet  had  probed 
it.     He  had  displayed   the  patience  and  sagacity  of  the  ox 
during  those  days  of  hard  study  ;  and  this  fact,  together  with 
his  square  head,  had  deceived  his  relatives.     They  took  him 
for  a  man  of  extraordinary  abilities. 

At  the  office  he  was  punctilious,  pedantic,  pompous,  and 
fussy;  a  perfect  terror  to  his  clerks.  He  was  always  making 
observations  for  their  benefit,  always  insisting  upon  commas 
and  full  stops,  always  a  stickler  for  rules  and  regulations,  and 
so  terribly  punctual  that  not  one  of  the  clerks  failed  to  be  in 
his  place  before  he  came  in. 

Baudoyer  used  to  wear  a  coat  of  cornflower-blue  with  yellow 
buttons,  a  buff"  waistcoat,  gray  trousers,  and  a  colored  stock. 
He  had  big  feet,  and  his  boots  fitted  him  badly.  His  watch- 
chain  was  adorned  with  a  huge  bunch  of  seals  and  trinkets. 


LES  EMPLOYES.  253 

among  which  he  still  retained  the  "American  seeds"  which 
used  to  be  the  fashion  in  the  year  VII.;  and  this  in  1824 ! 

The  restraints  of  religion  and  rigid  habits  of  life  were  forces 
that  bound  this  family  together;  they  had,  moreover,  one 
common  aim  to  unite  them — the  thought  of  making  money 
was  the  compass  which  guided  their  course.  Elizabeth  Bau- 
doyer  was  obliged  to  commune  with  herself  for  lack  of  any 
one  to  comprehend  her  ideas;  for  she  felt  that  she  was  not 
among  equals  who  could  understand  them.  Facts  had  com- 
pelled her  to  form  her  own  conclusions  of  her  husband,  but  as 
a  woman  of  rigid  principle  she  did  her  best  to  keep  up  M. 
Baudoyer's  reputation  ;  she  showed  profound  respect  for  him, 
honoring  in  him  the  father  of  her  child  and  her  husband  ;  the 
''temporal  power,"  in  short,  as  the  Abbe  Gaudron  put  it. 
For  which  reason  she  would  have  thought  it  a  deadly  sin  to 
allow  a  stranger  to  read  her  real  opinion  of  her  vapid  mate  in 
any  glance,  or  gesture,  or  word.  She  even  professed  a  passive 
obedience  to  his  will  in  all  things.  Rumors  of  the  outer  world 
reached  her  ears,  she  noted  them  and  made  her  own  compari- 
sons ;  and  so  sound  was  her  judgment  of  men  and  affairs,  that 
she  became  an  oracle  in  private  for  the  two  functionaries. 
Indeed,  at  the  time  when  this  history  begins,  they  had  uncon- 
sciously reached  the  point  of  doing  nothing  without  consulting 
her. 

"She  is  a  sharp  one,  is  Elizabeth!"  old  Saillard  used  to 
say  ingenuously.  But  Baudoyer  was  too  much  of  a  fool  not 
to  be  puffed  up  by  his  ill-founded  reputation  in  the  Quartier 
Saint-Antoine.  He  would  not  allow  that  his  wife  was  clever, 
while  he  turned  her  cleverness  to  account.  Elizabeth  felt 
convinced  that  her  Uncle  Bidault,  alias  Gigonnet,  must  be  a 
rich  man,  a  capitalist  with  an  enormous  turnover.  By  the 
light  of  self-interest,  she  read  M.  Baudoyer  better  than  the 
minister  read  him.  She  saw  that  she  was  mated  with  a  fool ; 
she  shrewdly  suspected  that  life  might  have  been  something 
very  different  for  her  ;   but  she  preferred  to  leave  that  might- 


264  LES  EMPLOYES. 

have-been  unexplored.  All  the  gentle  affections  of  Elizabeth's 
nature  found  satisfaction  in  her  daughter;  she  spared  her  little 
girl  the  drudgery  that  she  had  known  ;  she  loved  her  child,  and 
thought  that  this  was  all  that  could  be  expected  of  her.  It 
was  for  that  daughter's  sake  that  she  had  persuaded  her  father 
to  take  the  extraordinary  step  of  going  into  partnership  with 
Falleix.  Falleix  had  been  introduced  to  the  family  by  old 
Bidault,  who  lent  him  money  on  pledges.  But  Falleix  found 
his  old  fellow-countryman  too  dear  ;  he  complained  with  much 
candor  before  the  Saillards  that  Gigonnet  was  asking  eighteen 
per  cent,  of  an  Auvergnat.  Old  Mme.  Saillard  went  so  far 
as  to  reproach  her  relative. 

"It  is  just  because  he  is  an  Auvergnat  that  I  only  ask  eighteen 
per  cent.  !  "  retorted  Gigonnet.  It  was  about  that  time  that 
Falleix,  aged  twenty-eight,  had  hit  upon  a  new  invention.  It 
seemed  to  Saillard,  to  whom  he  explained  it,  that  the  young 
man  "talked  straight"  (to  use  an  expression  from  Saillard's 
dictionary),  and  that  there  was  a  fortune  to  be  made  out  of 
his  idea.  Elizabeth  at  once  conceived  the  notion  of  keeping 
Falleix  to  "simmer"  for  her  daughter,  and  forming  her  son- 
in-law  herself.  She  was  looking  seven  years  ahead.  Martin 
Falleix's  respect  for  Mme.  Baudoyer  knew  no  bounds  ;  he 
recognized  her  intellectual  superiority.  If  he  had  made  mil- 
lions, he  would  still  have  been  devoted  to  the  house,  where  he 
was  made  one  of  the  family  circle.  Elizabeth's  little  girl  had 
been  taught  already  to  fill  his  glass  prettily  and  to  take  his  hat 
when  he  came. 

When  M.  Saillard  came  home  after  the  minister's  dinner- 
party, the  game  of  boston  was  in  full  swing.  Elizabeth  was 
advising  Falleix  ;  old  Mme.  Saillard,  knitting  in  the  fireside 
corner,  was  looking  over  the  curate's  hand  ;  and  M.  Baudoyer, 
impassive  as  a  milestone,  was  exerting  his  intelligence  to  dis- 
cover where  the  cards  were.  Mitral  sat  opposite.  He  had 
come  up  from  Ile-Adam  for  Christmas.     Nobody  moved  when 


LES  EMPLOYES.  255 

Saillard  came  in.  For  several  minutes  he  walked  up  and  down 
the  room,  his  broad  countenance  puckered  by  unwonted  mental 
exercise. 

"It  is  always  the  way  when  he  dines  with  the  minister ; 
luckily,  it  only  happens  twice  a  year  or  they  would  just  kill 
him  outright,"  remarked  Mme.  Saillard.      "  Saillard  was  not 

made    to    be   in   the    government "      Aloud   she  added, 

"  Saillard,  I  say,  I  hope  you  are  not  going  to  keep  your  best 
clothes  on,  your  silk  breeches  and  Elbeuf  cloth  coat?  Just 
go  and  take  your  things  off;  don't  wear  them  out  here  for 
nothing  ;  ma  merey 

"There  is  something  the  matter  with  your  father,"  Bau- 
doyer  remarked  to  his  wife,  when  the  cashier  had  gone  to 
change  his  clothes  in  his  fireless  room. 

"Perhaps  Monsieur  de  la  Billardiere  is  dead,"  Elizabeth 
returned  simply  ;  "he  is  anxious  that  you  should  have  the 
place,  and  that  worries  him." 

"  If  I  can  be  of  service  to  you  in  any  way,  command  me," 
said  the  curate  of  Saint  Paul's,  with  a  bow;  "I  have  the 
honor  to  be  known  to  Madame  la  Dauphine.  In  our  times 
all  offices  should  be  filled  by  devoted  subjects  and  men  of 
stanch  religious  principle." 

"  Oh  come  !  "  said  Falleix  ;  "  do  men  of  merit  want  patron- 
age if  they  are  to  get  on  in  your  line?  I  did  the  right  thing 
when  I  turned  brass-founder ;  custom  comes  to  find  you  out  if 
you  make  a  good  article." 

"The  Government,  sir,  is  the  Government,"  interrupted 
Baudoyer;  "never  attack  it  here." 

"You  are  talking  like  the  '  Constitutionnel,*  in  fact,"  said 
the  curate. 

"  Just  the  sort  of  thing  the  '  Constitutionnel '  always  says," 
assented  Baudoyer,  who  never  saw  the  paper. 

The  cashier  fully  believed  that  his  son-in-law  was  as  much 
Rabourdin's  superior  in  intellect  "as  God  was  above  St.  Cris- 
pin "  (to  use  his  own  expression) ;  still,  the  good  soul's  desire 


256  LES  EMPLOYAS. 

for  the  step  was  a  guileless  wish.  He  wanted  success  ;  he 
wanted  it  as  all  employes  want  their  step,  with  a  vehement, 
intense,  unreflecting,  brutal  desire  to  get  on  ;  but,  at  the  same 
time,  he  must  have  it,  as  he  wished  to  have  the  cross  of  the 
Legion  of  Honor,  to  wit,  entirely  through  his  own  merits, 
and  with  a  clear  conscience.  To  his  way  of  thinking,  if  a 
man  had  sat  for  twenty-five  years  behind  a  grating  in  a  public 
office,  he  might  be  said  to  have  given  his  life  for  his  country, 
and  had  fairly  earned  tb.e  cross.  He  could  think  of  no  way 
of  serving  the  interests  of  his  son-in-law,  save  by  putting  in 
a  word  for  him  with  the  minister's  wife  when  he  took  her  the 
monthly  stipend. 

"  Well,  Saillard,  you  look  as  if  you  had  lost  all  your  rela- 
tives !  Speak  out,  my  boy;  pray  tell  us  something,"  cried 
Mme.  Saillard  when  he  came  in  again. 

Saillard  turned  on  his  heel,  with  a  sign  to  his  daughter, 
intimating  that  politics  were  forbidden  while  visitors  were 
present. 

When  M.  Mitral  and  the  curate  had  taken  their  departure, 
Saillard  pushed  back  the  table,  and  sat  down  in  his  arm- 
chair. He  had  a  way  of  seating  himself  which  meant  that  a 
piece  of  office  gossip  was  about  to  be  communicated;  a  se- 
quence of  movements  as  unmistakable  as  the  three  raps  on  the 
stage  at  the  Comedie-Franq:aise.  First  of  all,  he  pledged  his 
wife  and  daughter  and  son-in-law  to  the  most  profound  secrecy 
(for  however  mild  the  gossip  might  be,  their  places,  so  he  was 
wont  to  say,  depended  upon  their  discretion)  ;  then  he  brought 
out  his  incomprehensible  riddle.  How  a  deputy  was  about  to 
resign  ;  how  the  secretary-general,  very  reasonably,  wanted  to 
be  nominated  to  succeed  him  ;  how  the  minister  was  privately 
thwarting  the  wish  of  one  of  his  firmest  supporters  and  most 
zealous  servants;  and  lastly,  how  the  age  limit  and  pecuniary 
qualifications  had  been  discussed.  Then  came  an  avalanche 
of  conjectures,  washed  away  by  a  torrent  of  arguments  on  the 
part  of  the  two  officials,  who  kept  up  an  exchange  of  ponder- 


LES  EMPLOYES.  257 

ous  banalities.     As  for  Elizabeth,  she  asked  but  three  ques- 
tions. 

"If  Monsieur  des  Lupeaulx  is  for  us,  can  he  carry  Bau- 
doyer's  nomination  ?  " 

^'Qutenf  begad,  he  could  !  "  cried  the  cashier. 

Elizabeth  pondered  this.  "In  1814,  Uncle  Bidault  and 
his  friend  Gobseck  obliged  him,"  she  thought.  Aloud  she 
asked  :  "  Is  he  still  in  debt  ?  " 

"  Yes-s-s,"  said  the  cashier,  with  a  doleful  prolongation  of 
the  final  sibilant.  "They  tried  to  attach  his  salary,  but  they 
were  stopped  by  an  order  from  headquarters,  an  injunction  at 
sight." 

"  Then,  where  is  his  estate  of  the  Lupeaulx  ?  " 

"  Quien!  begad  !  Your  grandfather  and  Great-uncle  Bidault 
came  from  the  place,  so  did  Falleix ;  it  is  not  far  from  the 
arrondissement  of  this  deputy  that  is  coming  off  guard " 

When  her  colossus  of  a  husband  was  in  bed,  Elizabeth  bent 
over  him,  and  though  he  had  sneered  at  her  questions  for 
"  crotchets,"  she  said — 

"  Dear,  perhaps  you  are  going  to  have  Monsieur  de  la  Bil- 
lardiere's  place." 

"  There  you  are  again  with  your  fancies  !  "  cried  Baudoyer. 
"Just  leave  Monsieur  Gaudron  to  speak  to  the  Dauphiness, 
and  don't  meddle  with  the  office." 

At  eleven  o'clock,  just  as  all  was  quiet  in  the  Place  Royale, 
M.  des  Lupeaulx  left  the  opera  to  go  to  the  Rue  Duphot.  It 
chanced  to  be  one  of  Mme.  Rabourdin's  most  brilliant  Wed- 
nesdays. A  good  many  frequenters  of  her  house  had  come  in 
after  the  theatre  to  swell  the  groups  already  assembled  in  her 
rooms,  and  many  celebrities  were  there  :  Canalis  the  poet,  the 
painter  Schinner,  Dr.  Bianchon,  Lucien  de  Rubempre,  Octave 
de  Camps,  the  Comte  de  Granville,  the  Vicomte  de  Fontaine, 
du  Bruel,  writer  of  vaudevilles,  Andoche  Finot,  the  journalist, 
Derville,  one  of  the  longest-headed  lawyers  of  the  day ;  the 
17 


258  LES  EMPLOYES. 

Comte  du  Chatelet  and  du  Tillet,  the  banker,  were  all  present, 
with  several  young  men  of  fashion  like  Paul  de  Manerville 
and  the  young  Vicomte  de  Portendufere. 

Celestine  was  dispensing  tea  when  the  secretary-general 
came  in.  Her  dress  suited  her  well  that  evening.  She  wore  a 
perfectly  plain  black  velvet  gown  and  a  black  gauze  scarf;  her 
hair  was  carefully  smoothed  beneath  a  high  coronet  of  plaits, 
ringlets  in  the  English  fashion  fell  on  each  side  of  her  face. 
Her  chief  distinction  was  an  artist's  Italian  negligence,  the 
ease  with  which  she  understood  everything,  and  her  gracious 
way  of  welcoming  her  friends'  least  wishes.  Nature  had  given 
her  a  slender  figure,  so  that  she  could  turn  swifty  at  the  first 
questioning  word  ;  her  eyes  were  Oriental  in  shape,  and 
obliquely  set  in  Chinese  fashion,  so  that  they  could  glance 
sideward.  Her  soft,  insinuating  voice  was  so  well  under  con- 
trol that  she  could  throw  a  caressing  charm  into  every  word, 
even  her  most  spontaneous  utterances  ;  her  feet  were  such  as 
you  only  see  in  portraits,  for  in  this  one  respect  painters  may 
flatter  their  sitters  without  sinning  against  the  laws  of  anat- 
omy. Like  most  brunettes,  she  looked  a  little  sallow  by  day- 
light, but  at  night  her  complexion  was  dazzling,  setting  off 
her  dark  eyes  and  hair.  Lastly,  the  firm,  slender  outlines 
of  her  form  put  an  artist  in  mind  of  the  Venus  of  the  Middle 
Ages  discovered  by  Jean  Goujon,*  the  great  sculptor  favored 
by  Diane  de  Poitiers. 

Des  Lupeaulx  stopped  in  the  doorway,  and  leaned  his 
shoulder  against  the  frame.  He  was  accustomed  to  spy  out 
men's  ideas;  he  could  not  refuse  himself  the  pleasure  of  spying 
a  woman's  feelings  ;  for  Celestine  interested  him  far  more 
than  any  woman  had  done  before.  And  des  Lupeaulx  had 
reached  an  age  when  men  claim  much  from  women.  The 
first  white  hairs  are  the  signal  for  the  last  passions ;  and  these 
are  the  most  tumultuous  of  all,  for  they  are  stimulated  by  the 
last  heat  of  youth  and  the  sense  of  exhaustion.  The  fortieth 
*  A  protestant,  slain  in  Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew,  1572. 


LES  EMPLOYES.  259 

year  is  the  age  for  follies,  the  age  when  a  man  desires  to  be 
loved  for  his  own  sake.  To  love  at  forty  is  no  longer  suffi- 
cient in  itself,  as  it  used  to  be  when  he  was  young,  and  could 
be  happy  in  falling  in  love  at  random  in  Cherubino's  fashion. 
At  forty  nothing  less  than  all  will  satisfy  a  man,  and  he  is 
afraid  lest  he  should  obtain  nothing ;  whereas,  at  five-and- 
twenty,  he  has  so  much  that  it  is  not  worth  while  to  exert  his 
will.  There  is  so  much  strength  to  spare  at  five-and-twenty 
that  it  may  be  squandered  with  impunity  ;  but  at  forty  a  man 
takes  abuse  of  strength  for  vigor.  The  thoughts  that  filled 
des  Lupeaulx's  mind  at  this  moment  were  surely  melancholy 
ones,  for  the  elderly  beau's  countenance  had  visibly  length- 
ened ;  the  agreeable  smile  which  lent  expression  to  his  face, 
and  did  duty  as  a  mask,  had  ceased  to  contract  his  features  ; 
the  real  man  was  visible  ;  it  was  not  a  pleasant  sight.  Ra- 
bourdin  noticed  it. 

"What  has  rome  to  him?"  he  wondered.  "Is  he  in  dis- 
grace? "  But  the  secretary-general  was  merely  reflecting  that 
he  had  been  dropped  once  before  somewhat  too  promptly  by 
pretty  Mme.  Colleville,  whose  intentions  had  been  precisely 
the  same  as  Celestine's  own.  Rabourdin  also  saw  that  the 
would-be  statesman's  eyes  were  fixed  upon  his  wife ;  and  he 
made  a  note  of  their  expression  in  his  memory.  Rabourdin 
was  too  clear-sighted  an  observer  not  to  see  through  des  Lu- 
peaulx ;  indeed,  he  felt  the  most  thorough  contempt  for  the 
secretary-general ;  but  if  a  man  is  much  engrossed  by  some 
pursuit,  his  feelings  are  less  apt  to  rise  to  the  surface,  and 
mental  absorption  in  the  work  that  he  loves  is  equivalent  to 
the  cleverest  dissimulation  of  his  attitude  of  mind.  For  this 
reason,  Rabourdin's  opinions  were  like  a  sealed  book  to  des 
Lupeaulx.  The  chief  clerk  was  displeased  by  the  upstart  poli- 
tician's presence  in  his  house ;  but  he  had  not  cared  to  cross 
Celestine's  will.  He  happened  to  be  chatting  confidentially 
at  the  moment  with  a  supernumerary,  a  young  clerk  destined 
to  play  a  part  in  the  intrigue  set  on  foot  by  La  Billardidrc's 


260  LES  EMPLOYES. 

approaching  death,  so  that  it  was  but  a  wandering  attention 
that  he  gave  to  Celestine  and  des  Lupeaulx. 

Some  account  of  the  supernumerary  ought,  perhaps,  to  be 
given  here  for  the  benefit  of  our  nephews,  and,  at  the  same 
time,  for  the  edification  of  foreign  readers. 

The  supernumerary  is  to  the  administration  what  the  chorister 
boy  is  to  the  church  ;  what  the  child  of  the  company  is  to  the 
regiment  or  the  "  rat  "  to  the  theatre — an  ingenuous,  innocent 
being,  a  creature  blinded  by  illusions.  How  far  should  we  go 
without  illusions?  On  the  strength  of  illusions  we  struggle 
with  the  difficulties  of  art  while  we  scarce  keep  the  wolf  from 
the  door,  we  digest  the  rudiments  of  the  sciences  with  faith 
drawn  from  the  same  source.  Illusions  mean  unbounded 
faith,  and  the  supernumerary  has  faith  in  the  administration. 
He  does  not  take  it  for  the  unfeeling,  cold-blooded,  hard- 
hearted system  that  it  is. 

Of  supernumeraries,  there  are  but  two  kinds — the  well-to-do 
and  the  poor.  The  poor  supernumerary  is  rich  in  hope,  and 
needs  a  berth  ;  the  well-to-do  supernumerary  is  poor  in  spirit, 
and  has  need  of  nothing.  No  v/ell-to-do  family  is  so  simple 
as  to  put  a  man  of  brains  into  the  administration.  The  well- 
to-do  supernumerary  is  usually  committed  to  the  care  of  a 
senior  clerk,  or  placed  under  the  eye  of  a  director-general,  to 
undergo  his  initiation  into  the  "pure  comedy"  of  the  civil 
service,  as  it  would  be  styled  by  that  profound  philosopher 
Bilboquet.  The  horrors  of  probation  are  mitigated  for  him 
until  he  receives  a  definite  appointment.  Government  offices 
are  never  afraid  of  the  well-to-do  supernumerary.  The  clerks 
all  know  that  he  is  not  at  all  dangerous  ;  he  aims  at  nothing 
short  of  the  highest  places  in  the  service. 

At  this  time  many  families  were  asking:  "What  shall  we 
do  with  our  boys?"  There  were  no  chances  of  getting  on  in 
the  army.  Special  careers,  such  as  the  navy,  the  mines,  civil 
and  military  engineering,  and  professorships,  are  either  hedged 
about  with  regulations  or  closed  by  competition;  whereas  the 


LES  EMPLOYES.  261 

rotatory  movement  which  metamorphoses  clerks  in  a  govern- 
ment office  into  prefects,  sub-prefects,  or  receivers  and  control- 
lers of  taxes  and  the  like  (in  much  the  same  way  as  the  little 
figures  revolve  in  a  magic-lantern),  this  movement,  to  repeat,  is 
subject  to  no  rules,  and  there  are  no  terms  to  keep.  Through 
this  hole  in  the  administrative  system,  therefore,  behold  the 
well-to-do  supernumeraries  emerge ;  these  are  young  men  who 
drive  gigs  about  town,  and  wear  good  clothes  and  mustaches, 
and  behave,  one  and  all  of  them,  as  insolently  as  any  self-made 
upstart.  The  well-to-do  supernumerary  was  almost  invariably 
a  nephew  or  a  cousin  or  a  relative  of  some  minister,  or  civil 
servant,  or  of  a  very  influential  peer.  Journalists  used  to  be 
pretty  hard  upon  him  ;  not  so  the  established  clerks ;  they 
aided  and  abetted  the  young  gentleman,  and  made  interest 
with  him. 

But  the  poor  supernumerary  (the  only  genuine  kind)  is,  in 
nearly  every  case,  a  widow's  son.  His  father  before  him 
probably  was  a  clerk  in  a  government  office ;  his  mother 
lives  on  a  meagre  pension,  and  starves  herself  to  support  her 
boy  till  he  can  get  a  permanent  post  as  copying  clerk ;  she 
dies  while  he  is  within  sight  of  that  marshal's  baton  of  the 
profession — the  post  of  draughting  clerk,  with  a  prospect  of 
drawing  up  reports  and  formulating  orders  for  the  term  of  his 
natural  life,  or  even  a  problematical  chance  of  becoming  a 
senior  clerk.  This  kind  of  supernumerary  always  lives  in 
some  neighborhood  where  rents  are  low,  and  leaves  it  an  early 
liour.  For  him  the  state  of  the  weather  is  the  real  Eastern 
Question.  He  must  walk  the  whole  way  to  the  office,  and 
keep  his  boots  clean,  and  take  care  of  his  clothes;  he  must 
make  allowance  for  the  time  that  he  is  like  to  lose  if  a  heavy 
shower  forces  him  to  take  shelter.  The  supernumerary  has 
plenty  to  think  about  !  Pavements  in  the  streets  and  flag- 
stones along  the  quays  and  boulevards  were  boons  indeed  for 
him.  If  any  strange  chance  should  bring  you  out  into  the 
streets  of  Paris  between  half-past  seven  and  eight  o'clock  of  a 


262  LES  EMPLOYES. 

a  winter  morning,  when  there  is  a  sharp  frost,  or  the  weather 
is  generally  unpleasant ;  and  if,  furthermore,  you  happen  to 
see  a  pallid,  timorous  youth  walking  along  without  a  cigar  in 
his  mouth — look  at  his  pocket ;  you  are  pretty  sure  to  dis- 
cover the  outlines  of  the  roll  which  his  mother  gave  him  when 
he  left  home,  so  that  he  might  hold  out,  without  damage  to 
his  internal  economy,  through  the  nine  long  hours  that  separate 
breakfast  from  dinner.  The  period  of  unsophisticated  inno- 
cence is,  however,  but  short.  By  the  light  of  a  very  little 
knowledge  of  life  in  Paris  a  lad  soon  acquires  a  notion  of  the 
awful  distance  between  a  supernumerary  and  a  copying  clerk ; 
a  distance  which  neither  Archimedes,  nor  Newton,  nor  Pascal, 
nor  Leibnitz,  nor  Kepler,  nor  Laplace,  nor  any  other  mathe- 
matician can  compute.  It  is  the  difference  between  zero  and 
the  unit,  between  a  problematical  bonus  and  a  regularly  paid 
salary.  The  supernumerary  accordingly  is  pretty  quick  to  see 
the  impossibilities  of  the  career ;  he  hears  the  talk  of  the 
clerks ;  they  explain  to  him  how  So-and-so  was  promoted  over 
their  heads.  By  and  by  he  discovers  the  intrigues  of  govern- 
ment offices ;  he  finds  out  how  his  superiors  were  promoted, 
and  the  extraordinary  circumstances  that  led  to  their  success. 
One,  for  instance,  married  a  young  lady  with  a  past ;  another 
took  to  wife  the  natural  daughter  of  a  minister ;  yet  another 
took  a  heavy  responsibility  upon  his  shoulders  ;  while  a  fourth, 
an  extremely  able  man,  imperiled  his  health  with  working 
like  a  galley-slave ;  but  this  last  employe  had  the  perseverance 
of  a  mole,  and  not  every  man  feels  himself  capable  of  perform- 
ing such  feats.  Everything  is  known  in  the  office.  Some- 
times an  incompetent  man  has  a  wife  with  plenty  of  brains  ; 
she  brought  him  thus  far;  it  was  she  who  secured  his  nomina- 
tion as  a  deputy ;  and  though  he  has  no  capacity  for  work,  he 
can  intrigue  in  a  small  way  in  the  Chamber.  So-and-so  has 
an  intimate  friend  in  a  statesman's  wife.  Such-a-one  is  in 
league  with  a  formidable  journalist. 

Then   the  supernumerary   is   disgusted   and   hands  in   his 


LES  EMPLOYES.  263 

resignation.  Three- fourths  of  the  supernumeraries  leave  be- 
fore they  secure  permanent  berths.  Those  that  remain  are 
either  dogged  young  men  or  simpletons  that  say  to  themselves  : 
"  I  have  been  here  for  three  years,  I  shall  get  a  berth  if  I  stay 
on  long  enough  !  "  or  those  that  feel  conscious  of  a  vocation. 
Clearly  the  supernumerary  is,  in  the  administration,  pretty 
much  what  the  novice  is  in  religious  orders.  He  is  passing 
through  his  probation,  and  the  trial  is  severe.  In  the  course 
of  it  the  State  discovers  the  men  that  can  bear  hunger  and  thirst 
and  want  without  giving  way  under  the  strain  ;  men  whom 
drudgery  does  not  disgust ;  the  temperament  that  will  accept 
the  horrible  life,  the  disease,  if  you  prefer  it,  of  a  Government 
office.  The  supernumerary  system  from  this  point  of  view,  so 
far  from  being  a  scandalous  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  Govern- 
ment to  get  work  done  for  nothing,  might  fairly  be  regarded 
as  a  beneficent  institution. 

The  young  fellow  with  whom  Rabourdin  was  speaking  was 
a  poor  supernumerary,  by  name  Sebasticn  de  la  Roche.  He 
had  walked  on  tiptoe  from  the  Rue  du  Roi  Dore,  in  the 
Marias,  but  there  was  not  the  slightest  speck  of  mud  on  his 
clothes.  He  spoke  of  his  "mamma,"  and  dared  not  lift  his 
eyes  to  look  at  Mme.  Rabourdin.  Her  house  seemed  to  him 
to  be  a  second  Louvre.  His  poor  mother  had  given  him  a 
five-franc  piece  in  case  it  should  be  absolutely  necessary  to 
play;  admonishing  him,  at  the  same  time,  to  take  nothing, 
to  stand  the  whole  time,  and  to  be  very  careful  not  to  upset 
a  lamp  or  any  of  the  pretty  trifles  on  the  whatnots.  He 
was  dressed  entirely  in  black  ;  his  gloves  had  been  cleaned 
with  india-rubber,  and  he  exhibited  them  as  little  as  possible. 
His  fair  complexion  and  bright  hazel  eyes,  with  gleams  of 
gold  in  them,  suited  well  with  his  thick  red-brown  hair.  Now 
and  again  the  poor  boy  would  steal  a  glance  at  Mme.  Rabour- 
din. "What  a  beautiful  woman  !  "  he  said  to  himself;  and 
when  he  went  home  that  night  he  thought  of  the  fairy  till 
sleep  closed  his  eyes. 


264  LES  EMPLOYES. 

Rabourdin  saw  that  Sebastien  had  the  making  of  a  good 
clerk  in  him ;  and  as  he  took  his  position  of  supernumerary 
seriously,  the  chief  clerk  was  very  much  interested  in  the  poor 
boy.  And  not  only  so,  he  had  made  a  pretty  correct  guess  at 
the  poverty  in  the  home  of  a  poor  widow  with  a  pension  of 
seven  hundred  francs ;  Sebastien  had  not  long  left  school,  his 
education  must  necessarily  have  eaten  into  her  savings.  So 
Rabourdin  had  been  quite  like  a  father  to  the  supernumerary ; 
he  had  often  gone  out  of  his  way  at  the  board  to  get  a  bonus  for 
him ;  sometimes,  indeed,  he  had  paid  the  money  out  of  his 
own  pocket  when  the  argument  had  grown  too  warm  with  the 
distributors  of  favors. 

Then  he  heaped  work  upon  Sebastien ;  he  was  training 
him  ;  he  made  him  fill  du  Bruel's  place ;  and  du  Bruel,  a 
playwright  known  to  the  dramatic  world  and  the  public  by 
the  pseudonym  of  de  Cursy,  paid  Sebastien  a  hundred  crowns 
out  of  his  salary.  Mme.  de  la  Roche  and  her  son  regarded 
Rabourdin  as  a  great  man,  a  guardian  angel  and  a  tyrant 
blended  in  one ;  all  their  hopes  depended  on  him.  Sebastien 
always  looked  forward  to  the  time  when  he  should  be  an 
established  clerk.  Ah  !  it  is  a  great  day  for  the  supernumerary 
when  he  signs  his  receipt  for  his  salary  for  the  first  time. 
Many  a  time  he  has  fingered  the  money  for  the  first  month, 
and  the  whole  of  it  is  not  paid  over  to  the  mother.  Venus 
smiles  upon  these  first  payments  from  the  ministerial  cash-box. 
This  hope  could  only  be  realized  for  Sebastien  by  M.  Rabour- 
din, his  only  protector;  and,  accordingly,  the  lad's  devotion 
to  his  chief  was  unbounded.  Twice  a  month  he  dined  in  the 
Rue  Duphot ;  but  only  with  the  family,  and  Rabourdin  always 
brought  him  home.  Madame  never  gave  him  an  invitation 
except  to  balls,  when  dancing  young  men  were  wanted.  At 
the  sight  of  the  awful  des  Lupeaulx  his  heart  beat  fast.  •  One 
of  the  minister's  carriages  used  to  come  for  des  Lupeaulx  at 
half.past  four,  just  as  he  himself  was  opening  his  umbrella 
under  the  archway  before  setting  off  for  the  Marias.     His  fate 


ONE   OF  THE   MINISTER'S    CARRIAGES    USED    TO    COME    FOR 

DES  LUPEAULX  AT  HALF  PAST  FOUR,  JUST  AS  HE 

HIMSELF  WAS  OPENING  HIS  UMBRELLA. 


4Jik.  .^1 


LES  EMPLOYES.  265 

depended  upon  the  secretary-general  ;  one  word  from  the  man 
in  the  doorway  could  give  him  a  berth  and  a  salary  of  twelve 
hundred  francs.  (Twelve  hundred  francs  !  It  was  the  height 
of  his  ambition  ;  he  and  liis  mother  could  live  in  comfort  on 
such  a  stipend.)  And  yet  the  secretary-general  did  not  know 
him.  Des  Lupeaulx  was  scarcely  aware  there  was  such  a  person 
as  Sebastien  de  la  Roche.  If  La  Billardiere's  son,  a  well-to- 
do  supernumerary  in  Baudoyer's  office,  chanced  to  be  under 
the  archway  at  the  same  time,  des  Lupeaulx  never  failed  to 
give  him  a  friendly  nod  ;  but  then  M.  Benjamin  dc  la  Billar- 
diere  was  the  son  of  a  minister's  cousin. 

At  this  particular  moment  Rabourdin  was  giving  poor  little 
S6bastien  a  scolding.  Sebastien  was  the  only  person  wholly 
in  the  secret  of  Rabourdin's  vast  labors  ;  Sebastien  had  copied 
and  recopied  the  famous  memorial  on  a  hundred  and  fifty 
sheets  of  foolscap,  to  say  nothing  of  tabulated  statistics  in  sup- 
port of  the  argument,  abstracts  on  loose  leaves,  whole  columns 
of  bracketed  calculations,  headings  in  capital  letters,  and  sub- 
headings in  round  hand.  The  mechanical  part  that  he  played 
in  a  great  design  had  kindled  enthusiasm  in  the  lad  of  twenty; 
he  would  copy  out  a  whole  table  again  after  a  single  erasure  ; 
he  took  a  pride  in  the  handwriting  that  counted  for  something 
in  so  great  an  enterprise. 

Sebastien  had  been  so  thoughtless  as  to  take  the  most  dan- 
gerous rough  draft  of  all  to  the  office  in  order  to  finish  the 
fair  copy.  This  was  a  list  of  all  the  men  in  the  head  offices 
in  Paris,  with  notes  of  their  prospects,  their  present  circum- 
stances, and  private  occupations  after  hours. 

Most  civil  servants  in  Paris  eke  out  their  salaries  by  some 
supplementary  method  of  gaining  a  livelihood  ;  unless,  like 
Rabourdin,  they  possess  patriotic  ambition  or  mental  superi- 
ority. Like  M.  Saillard,  they  become  sleeping  partners  in  a 
business,  and  go  through  the  books  at  night.  A  good  many 
clerks,  again,  marry  seamstresses,  or  manageresses  of  lottery 
offices,   or   their  wives  keep   tobacconists'  shops  or    reading- 


266  LES  EMPLOYES. 

rooms.  Some,  like  Mme.  Colleville's  husband  (Mme.  Colle- 
ville,  it  may  be  remembered,  was  C^lestine's  rival),  have  a 
place  in  a  theatre  orchestra.  Yet  others,  like  du  Bruel,  for 
instance,  write  plays,  comic  operas,  and  melodramas,  or  take 
to  stage-management.  Witness  Messrs.  Sewrin,  Pixer6court, 
Planard,  and  others  as  instances  in  point.  Pigault-Lebrun, 
Piis,  and  Duvicquet  held  posts  in  the  civil  service  in  their 
time ;  and  M.  Scribe's  first  publisher  was  a  Treasury  clerk. 

Rabourdin's  inventory  contained  other  details.  It  was  an 
inquiry  into  the  personal  characteristics  of  individuals.  Some 
statement  of  their  mental  and  physical  capacities  must  of  ne- 
cessity be  included  in  the  survey  if  the  Government  was  to 
recognize  those  who  combined  intelligence  and  aptitude  for 
work  with  good  health,  for  these  are  three  indispensable 
qualifications  in  men  who  must  bear  the  burden  of  public 
business  and  do  everything  well  and  quickly.  The  inventory 
was  a  great  piece  of  work ;  it  was  the  outcome  of  ten  years  of 
labor,  and  a  long  experience  of  men  and  affairs  acquired  in 
the  course  of  intimacies  with  the  heads  of  other  departments; 
but  still  it  would  savor  somewhat  of  espionage,  if  it  fell  into 
the  hands  of  those  who  did  not  understand  the  drift  of  it.  If 
other  eyes  saw  a  single  sheet,  M.  Rabourdin  might  be  ruined. 
Sebastien's  admiration  for  his  chief  was  unbounded,  and  he 
knew  nothing  as  yet  of  the  petty  spite  of  bureaucracy.  He  had 
all  the  disadvantages  of  simplicity  as  well  as  its  charm.  So, 
although  he  had  just  been  scolded  for  taking  the  sheet  to  the 
office,  he  had  the  courage  to  make  a  full  confession.  The 
rough  draft  and  the  fair  copy  were  at  the  office  at  that  moment ; 
he  had  put  them  away  in  a  case  where  no  one  could  possibly 
find  them.  But  as  he  saw  the  gravity  of  his  mistake,  the  tears 
came  into  his  eyes. 

"Come,  come,  sir,"  Rabourdin  added  good-naturedly, 
"let  us  have  no  more  imprudence;  but  do  not  distress  your- 
self. Go  down  to  the  office  very  early  to-morrow  morning. 
Here  is  the  key  of  a  box  in  my  cylinder  desk ;  it  has  a  letter 


LES  LMPLOYAS.  267 

lock ;  open  it  with  the  word  del,  and  put  the  rough  draft  and 
the  copy  safely  away." 

This  piece  of  confidence  dried  the  lad's  tears.  His  chief 
tried  to  induce  him  to  take  tea  and  cake. 

"  Mamma  told  me  not  to  take  tea  because  of  my  digestion," 
said  Sebastien. 

"  Very  well,  my  dear  boy,  here  are  some  sandwiches  and 
cream  ;  come  and  sit  beside  me,"  said  the  awe-inspiring  Mme. 
Rabourdin,  ostentatiously  gracious.  She  made  Sebastien  sit 
by  her  at  the  table  ;  and  the  light  touch  of  the  goddess'  dress 
as  it  brushed  his  coat  brought  the  poor  boy's  heart  into  his 
mouth.  But  at  this  moment  the  fair  lady  saw  des  Lupeaulx, 
and,  instead  of  waiting  till  he  came  to  her,  she  went  smiling 
toward  him. 

"  Why  do  you  stay  there  as  if  you  were  sulking  with  us  ?  " 
she  asked. 

"I  was  not  sulking,"  he  replied.  "But  when  I  came  to 
bring  you  a  bit  of  good  news,  I  could  not  help  thinking  to 
myself  that  you  would  be  more  cruel  now  than  ever.  I  foresaw 
that  six  months  hence  I  should  be  almost  a  stranger  to  you. 
No  ;  we  cannot  dupe  each  other — you  have  too  much  intel- 
ligence, and  I  on  my  side  have  had  too  much  experience — I 
have  been  taken  in  too  often,  if  you  like  it  better.  Your  end 
is  attained  ;  it  has  cost  you  nothing  but  smiles  and  a  few 
gracious  words " 

"Dupe  each  other!"  she  repeated,  apparently  half- 
offended  ;   "  what  do  you  mean  ?  " 

"  Yes.  Monsieur  de  la  Billardi^re  is  worse  again  to-day  ; 
and  from  what  the  minister  said  to  me,  your  husband  is 
certain  to  be  head  of  the  division." 

He  gave  her  the  history  of  his  "scene"  with  the  minister 
(for  so  he  was  pleased  to  call  it),  of  the  countess'  jealousy, 
and  what  she  had  said  with  regard  to  the  curiously  granted 
invitation. 

"Monsieur  des  Lupeaulx,"  the  lady  returned  with  dignity, 


268  LES  EMPLOYES. 

"permit  me  to  point  out  to  you  that  my  husband  is  the  most 
capable  chief  clerk  ;  that  he  stands  first  in  seniority;  that  old 
La  Billardiere's  appointment  over  his  head  made  a  sensation 
all  through  the  service ;  that  he  has  done  the  work  of  the 
head  of  the  division  for  the  past  twelve  months ;  and  that  we 
have  neither  competitor  nor  rival," 

"That  is  true." 

"Well,"  she  continued,  with  a  smile  that  displayed  the 
prettiest  teeth  in  the  world,  "can  my  friendship  for  you  be 
spotted  with  any  thought  of  self-interest  ?  Can  you  think 
me  capable  of  it?" 

Des  Lupeaulx  signified  his  admiring  incredulity. 

"Ah!"  cried  she,  "a  woman's  heart  will  always  be  a 
secret  for  the  cleverest  of  you  men.  Yes,  I  have  seen  your 
visits  here  with  the  greatest  pleasure,  and  there  was  a  thought 
of  self  interest  at  the  back  of  the  pleasure." 

"Oh!" 

"You  have  an  unbounded  future  before  you,"  sne  con- 
tinued, lowering  her  voice  for  his  ear ;  "  you  will  be  a  deputy 
and  a  minister  some  day  !  "  (How  pleasant  it  is  to  an  ambi- 
tious man  to  have  such  words  as  these  murmured  in  his  ear  by 
a  pretty  woman  with  a  charming  voice  !)  "  Ah  !  I  know  you 
better  than  you  know  yourself  !  Rabourdin  will  be  immensely 
useful  to  you  in  your  career ;  he  will  do  the  work  while  you 
are  at  the  Chamber.  And  while  you  are  dreaming  of  taking 
office,  I  want  Rabourdin  to  be  a  councilor  of  State  and  a 
director-general.  Here  were  two  men  who  might  be  very  use- 
ful to  one  another,  while  their  interests  could  never  clash,  so 
I  took  it  into  my  head  to  bring  them  together.  That  is  a 
woman's  part,  is  it  not  ?  You  will  both  get  on  faster  as 
friends,  and  it  is  time  that  you  both  should  sail  ahead.  I 
have  burnt  my  boats,"  she  added,  smiling  at  him.  "You 
are  not  as  frank  with  me  as  I  am  with  you." 

"You  will  not  listen  to  me,"  he  returned  in  a  melancholy 
tone,  in  spite  of  the  satisfaction  that  her  words  gave  him  in 


LES  EMPLOYES.  269 

the  depths  of  his  heart.  "  What  good  will  your  promises  of 
promotion  do  me  if  you  dismiss  me  here  ?  " 

She  turned  on  him  with  a  Parisienne's  quickness. 

**  Before  I  listen  to  you,  we  must  be  in  a  position  to  under- 
stand each  other,"  she  said.  And  she  left  the  elderly  cox- 
comb and  went  to  talk  to  Mme.  de  Chessel,  a  provincial 
countess,  who  made  as  though  she  meant  to  go. 

''She  is  no  ordinary  woman!"  thought  des  Lupeaulx. 
"  I  am  not  myself  when  I  am  with  her." 

And  it  is  a  fact  that  this  reprobate  who  had  kept  an  opera- 
dancer  six  years  ago,  and  since  then,  thanks  to  his  position, 
had  made  a  seraglio  of  pretty  women  for  himself  among  the 
wives  of  the  employes,  and  lived  in  the  world  of  actresses  and 
journalists — this  jaded  man  of  forty,  I  repeat,  was  charming 
with  Celestine  all  that  evening,  and  the  very  last  to  leave  her 
salon. 

"At  last  !  "  thought  Mme.  Rabourdin,  as  she  went  to  bed. 
"At  last  we  shall  have  the  place.  Twelve  thousand  francs  a 
year,  beside  extras  and  the  rent  of  the  farm  at  Grajeux ; 
twenty-five  thousand  francs  altogether.  It  is  not  comfort, 
but  still  it  is  not  poverty." 

Celestine  thought  of  her  debts  till  she  fell  asleep.  They 
could  be  paid  off  in  three  years  by  putting  aside  six  thousand 
francs  a  year.  She  was  far  from  imagining,  as  she  took  Ra- 
bourdin's  promotion  for  granted,  that  somewhere  in  the  Marais 
a  little  shrewish,  self-seeking,  bigoted  bourgeoise  that  had 
never  set  foot  in  a  salon,  a  woman  without  influence  or  con- 
nections, was  thinking  of  carrying  the  place  by  storm.  And 
if  Mme.  Rabourdin  could  have  seen  Mme.  Baudoyer,  she 
would  have  despised  her  antagonist  ;  she  did  not  know  the 
power  of  pettiness,  the  penetrating  force  of  the  grub  that 
brings  down  the  elm-tree  by  tracing  a  ring  under  the  bark. 

If  it  were  possible  in  literature  to  make  use  of  the  micro- 
scope of  a  Leuwenhoek,  a  Malpighi,  or  a  Raspail,.  as  Hoff"mann 
of  Berlin  attempted  to  do;  if,  furthermore,  you  could  magnify 


270  LES  EMPLOYES. 

and  draw  the  teredo  that  brought  Holland  within  a  finger's 
breadth  of  extinction  by  gnawing  through  the  dykes,  perhaps 
you  might  see  sometiiing  within  a  little  resembling  the  coun- 
tenances of  Messieurs  Gigonnet,  Mitral,  Baudoyer,  Saillard, 
Gaudron,  Falleix,  Transon,  Godard  and  Company.  These 
human  teredos,  at  any  rate,  showed  what  they  could  do  in  the 
thirtieth  year  of  this  nineteenth  century.  And  now  is  the  time 
for  displaying  the  official  teredo,  as  he  burrows  in  the  public 
offices  where  most  of  the  scenes  in  this  history  will  take  place. 

At  Paris  all  public  offices  are  alike.  No  matter  to  what 
department  you  may  betake  yourself  to  ask  for  the  redress  of 
a  grievance  or  for  the  smallest  favor,  you  will  find  the  same 
gloomy  corridors,  the  same  dimly  lighted  backways,  the  same 
rows  of  doors  each  with  an  enigmatical  inscription,  and  an 
oval,  glazed  aperture  like  an  eye  ;  and  if  you  look  through 
those  windows,  you  may  see  fantastic  scenes  worthy  of  Callot. 
When  you  discover  the  object  of  your  search,  you  pass  first  of 
all  through  an  outer  room,  where  the  office  messenger  sits, 
into  a  second,  the  general  office  ;  the  senior  clerk's  sanctum 
lies  to  the  right  or  left  at  the  farther  end  of  it,  and  either 
beyond,  or  up  above,  you  find  the  room  appropriated  to  the 
use  of  the  chief  clerk  himself.  As  for  the  immense  personage 
styled  the  head  of  the  division  under  the  Empire,  the  director 
under  the  Restoration,  and  the  head  of  the  division  once 
more  in  our  day,  he  is  housed  either  up  above  or  down  below 
his  two  or  three  suites  of  offices  ;  but  occasionally  his  room 
lies  beyond  that  of  one  of  the  chief  clerks.  As  a  rule,  it  is 
remarkable  for  its  spaciousness,  an  advantage  not  a  little 
prized  in  these  curious  honeycomb  cells  of  the  big  hive  known 
as  a  government  department,  or  a  director-general's  depart- 
ment, if  there  can  be  said  to  be  such  a  thing  as  a  director- 
general. 

At  the  present  day  almost  every  department  has  absorbed  all 
the  lesser  administration  which  used  to  be  separate.     By  this 


LES  EMPLOYES.  271 

concentration  the  directors-general  have  been  shorn  of  all  their 
splendor  in  the  shape  of  hotels,  servants,  spacious  rooms,  and 
little  courtyards.  Who  would  recognize  the  commissioner  of 
woods  and  forests,  or  the  comptroller  of  excise,  in  a  man  that 
comes  to  the  Treasury  on  foot  and  climbs  the  stairs  to  a  second 
floor?  Once  these  dignitaries  were  councilors,  or  ministers, 
or  peers  of  France,  they  were  housed  in  a  splendid  hotel  in 
the  Rue  Sainte-Avoye  or  the  Rue  Saint-Augustin.  Messieurs 
Pasquier  and  Mole,  among  others,  were  content  with  a  comp- 
troller-general's post  after  they  had  been  in  office,  thus  illus- 
trating the  remark  made  by  the  Due  d'Antin  to  Louis  XIV,  : 
"  Sire,  when  Jesus  Christ  died  on  a  Friday,  He  was  sure  that 
on  Sunday  He  should  rise  from  tlie  dead."  If  the  comptroller- 
general's  sphere  of  activities  had  increased  in  extent  when  his 
splendor  was  curtailed,  perhaps  no  great  harm  would  have 
been  done ;  but  nowadays  it  is  with  great  difficulty  that  this 
personage  becomes  a  master  of  requests  with  a  paltry  twenty 
thousand  francs  a  year.  He  is  suffered  to  retain  a  symbol  of 
his  vanished  power  in  the  shape  of  an  usher  in  small  clothes, 
silk  stockings,  and  a  cut-away  coat,  if,  indeed,  the  usher  has 
not  latterly  been  reformed  out  of  existence. 

The  staff  of  an  office  consists,  in  administrative  style,  of  a 
messenger,  a  number  of  supernumeraries  who  work  for  nothing 
for  so  many  years,  and  the  established  clerks ;  to  wit,  the 
writers  or  copying  clerks,  the  draughting  clerks,  and  first  or 
senior  clerks,  under  a  chief  and  his  assistant,  the  sub-chief. 
A  division  usually  comprises  two  or  three  such  offices,  and 
sometimes  more.  The  names  of  the  functionaries  vary  with 
the  different  departments  ;  in  some  the  senior  clerk  may  be 
replaced  by  a  head  book-keeper  or  an  auditor. 

The  floor  of  the  outer  room,  inhabited  by  the  office  messen- 
ger, is  tiled  like  the  passage,  the  walls  are  covered  with  a  cheap 
paper ;  the  furniture  consists  of  a  stove,  a  big  black  table,  an 
inkstand  and  pens,  with  sundry  bare  benches  for  the  accom- 
modation of  the  public  that  dances  attendance  there  (the  office 


272  LES  EMPLOYES. 

messenger  sits  in  a  comfortable  armchair  and  rests  his  feet  on 
a  hassock).  Sometimes,  in  addition,  there  is  a  water-cistern 
and  a  tap.  The  general  office  is  a  large  and  more  or  less  well- 
lighted  apartment.  Wooden  floors  are  very  rare ;  parquetry 
and  open  fireplaces,  like  mahogany  cupboards,  tables,  and 
desks,  red  and  green  leather-covered  chairs,  silken  curtains, 
and  other  departmental  luxuries  are  appropriated  to  the  use  of 
chief  clerks  and  heads  of  divisions.  The  general  office  is 
supplied  with  a  stove,  the  pipe  enters  the  chimney-opening,  if 
there  happens  to  be  a  flue.  The  wall-paper  is  usually  plain 
green  or  brown.     The  tables  are  of  black  wood. 

A  clerk's  industry  may  be  pretty  accurately  gauged  by  his 
manner  of  installing  himself.  A  chilly  subject  will  have  a  kind 
of  wooden  foot-rest :  the  man  of  bilious-sanguine  temperament 
is  content  with  a  straw  mat ;  the  lymphatic  man  that  lives  in 
fear  of  draughts,  open  doors,  or  other  causes  of  a  fall  in  the 
temperature  will  intrench  himself  behind  a  little  screen  of  paste- 
board cases.  There  is  a  closet  {armoire)  somewhere  in  which 
office-coats,  over-sleeves,  eye-shades,  caps,  fezs,  and  other  gear 
of  the  craft  are  kept.  The  chimney-piece  is  almost  always 
loaded  with  water-bottles  and  glasses  and  the  remains  of 
luncheons;  a  lamp  may  be  found  in  some  dark  corners.  The 
door  of  the  assistant's  sanctum  usually  stands  ajar,  so  that  that 
gentleman  may  keep  an  eye  on  the  general  office,  prevent  too 
much  talk,  and  come  out  to  confer  with  the  clerks  in  great 


emergencies. 


You  can  tell  the  quality  of  the  official  at  a  pinch  from  the 
furniture  of  the  room.  The  curtains  vary,  some  are  of  white 
or  colored  stuff,  some  are  cotton,  some  silk;  the  chairs  are  of 
cherry-wood  or  mahogany,  and  straw-seated,  or  upholstered  or 
cushioned  with  leather  ;  the  wall-papers  are  more  or  less  clean. 
But  to  whatever  department  this  kind  of  public  property  may 
chance  to  belong,  nothing  can  look  more  strange,  when  re- 
moved from  its  surroundings,  than  a  collection  of  furniture 
that    has   seen   so  many   changes  of  government  and  come 


LES  EMPLOYES.  273 

through  so  much  rough  treatment.  Of  all  removals  in  Paris, 
the  migration  of  a  public  office  is  the  most  grotesque  to  wit- 
ness. The  genius  of  Hoffmann,  that  hight  priest  of  the  im- 
possible, could  not  invent  anything  more  whimsical.  Some 
unaccountable  change  is  wrought  in  the  pushcarts.  The 
yawning  pasteboard  cases  leave  a  track  of  dust  along  the 
street ;  the  tables  appear  with  their  castors  in  the  air.  There 
is  something  dismaying  in  the  aspect  of  the  ramshackle  arm- 
chairs and  inconceivably  odd  gear  with  which  the  administra- 
tion of  France  is  carried  on.  In  some  ways  it  reminds  you 
of  a  turnout  of  the  properties  of  a  theatre,  in  others  of  the 
stock-in-trade  of  an  acrobat.  Even  so,  upon  some  obelisk 
you  may  behold  traces  of  intelligent  purpose  in  the  shadowy 
lettering  which  troubles  your  imagination,  after  the  wont  of 
most  things  of  which  you  cannot  discern  the  end.  And  lastly, 
these  utensils  from  the  administrative  kitchen  are  all  so  old, 
so  battered,  so  faded,  that  the  dirtiest  array  of  pots  and  pans 
would  be  an  infinitely  more  pleasing  spectacle. 

If  foreign  and  provincial  readers  would  form  an  accurate 
idea  of  the  inner  life  of  a  public  office  at  Paris,  it  may,  per- 
haps, suffice  to  describe  M.  de  la  Billardiere's  division,  for  its 
chief  characteristics  are  common,  no  doubt,  to  all  European 
administrations. 

First  and  foremost,  picture,  to  suit  your  fancy,  the  person- 
age thus  set  forth  in  large  type  in  the  "  Annuaire  :  " 

"  Head  of  the  Division:  M.  le  Baron  Flamet  de  la  Bil- 
LARDiERE  (Athanase-Jean-Franyois-Michcl),  formerly  Grand 
Provost  of  the  Department  of  the  Correze ;  Gentleman  in 
Ordinary  of  the  Chamber  ;  Master  of  Requests  Extraordinary, 
President  of  the  Electoral  College  of  the  Department  of  the 
Dordogne,  officer  of  the  Legion  of  Honor ;  Chevalier  of  St. 
Louis,  and  of  the  foreign  orders  of  Christ,  of  Isabella,  of  St. 
Vladimir,  etc.,  etc.;  Member  of  the  Academic  of  Gers  and  of 
many  other  learned  Societies,  Vice-President  of  the  Socieie 
18 


274  LES  EMPLOYES. 

des  Bonnes-Lettres  ;  Member  of  the  Association  of  St.  Joseph, 
and  of  the  Prisoners'  Aid  Society ;  one  of  the  Mayors  of  Paris, 
and  so  forth,  and  so  forth." 

The  man  that  took  up  so  much  space  in  print  was  occupy- 
ing at  that  moment  some  five  feet  and  a  half  by  two  feet  six 
inches  on  the  bed  whereon  he  lay,  his  head  adorned  with 
a  cotton  nightcap  tied  with  flame-colored  ribbons;  with  Des- 
plein,  the  King's  surgeon,  and  young  Dr.  Bianchon  to  visit 
him,  and  two  elderly  kinswomen  to  mount  guard  over  him  on 
either  side;  a  host  of  phials,  bandages,  syringes,  and  other 
instruments  of  death  encompassing  him  about,  and  the  cure 
of  Saint-Roch  ever  on  the  watch  to  insinuate  a  word  or  two  as 
to  the  salvation  of  his  soul. 

Every  morning  his  son,  Benjamin  de  la  Billardi^re,  would 
meet  the  two  doctors  with  the  formula :  "  Do  you  think  that  I 
shall  be  so  fortunate  as  to  keep  my  father?"  It  was  only 
that  very  day  that,  by  a  slip  of  the  tongue,  he  had  brought 
out  the  word  ''unfortunate"  instead. 

La  BillardiSre's  division  was  situated  below  the  latitude  of 
the  attics  by  seventy-one  degrees  of  longitude,  measured  by 
the  steps  of  the  staircase,  in  the  departmental  ocean  of  a  great 
and  imposing  pile  of  buildings.  It  lay  on  the  northeast  side 
of  a  courtyard,  a  space  formerly  taken  up  by  the  stables,  and 
now  occupied  by  Clergeot's  division.  The  two  distinct  sets 
of  olifices  were  divided  by  the  breadth  of  the  stairhead.  All 
the  doors  were  labeled  along  a  spacious  corridor  illuminated 
by  borrowed  lights.  The  offices  and  antechambers  belonging 
to  the  two  chief  clerks,  Messrs.  Rabourdin  and  Baudoyer, 
were  below  on  the  second  floor ;  and  M.  de  la  Billardiere's 
antechamber,  sitting-room,  and  two  private  offices  lay  imme- 
diately beyond  M.  Rabourdin's  rooms. 

The  second  floor  was  divided  in  two  by  an  entresol,  and  here 
M.  Ernest  de  la  Briere  was  established.  M.  Ernest  de  la 
Briere  was  an  occult  power  which  shall  be  described  in  a  few 


LES  EMPLOYES.  275 

words,  for  he  certainly  deserves  a  parenthetic  mention.  So 
long  as  the  minister  was  in  office,  this  young  man  was  his 
private  secretary.  For  which  reason  his  room  communicated 
by  a  secret  door  with  his  excellency's  sanctum.  His  excel- 
lency, be  it  said,  had  two  private  cabinets;  one  of  these  was 
in  keeping  with  the  state  apartments  in  which  he  received 
visitors,  and  here  he  conferred  with  great  personages  in  the 
absence  of  his  secretary ;  the  other  was  the  study  in  which  he 
retired  to  work  with  his  private  secretary  and  without  wit- 
nesses. Now  a  private  secretary  is  to  a  single  minister  what 
des  Lupeaulx  was  to  a  whole  government.  Between  young  La 
Briere  and  des  Lupeaulx  there  was  just  the  difference  that 
separates  the  aide-de-camp  from  the  chief  of  the  staff.  Tlie 
private  secretary  is  a  minister's  apprentice ;  he  takes  himself 
off  and  reappears  with  his  patron.  If  the  minister  is  still  in 
favor,  or  if  he  has  hopes  when  he  goes  out  of  office,  he  takes 
his  secretary  with  him,  only  to  bring  him  back  again.  If  it 
is  otherwise,  he  puts  his  protege  out  to  grass  in  some  adminis- 
trative pasture — in  the  Audit  Department,  for  example,  that 
hostelry  where  secretaries  wait  till  the  storm  passes  over.  A 
young  gentleman  in  this  position  is  not  precisely  a  statesman ; 
he  is  a  man  of  politics ;  sometimes,  too,  he  represents  the 
politics  of  a  man.  When  you  come  to  think  of  the  quantity 
of  letters  which  he  must  open  and  read,  to  say  nothing  of  his 
other  occupations,  is  it  not  evident  that  such  a  commodity 
would  be  extremely  expensive  under  an  absolute  monarchy? 
At  Paris  a  victim  of  this  sort  can  be  had  for  an  annual  sum 
varying  from  ten  to  twenty  thousand  francs ;  but  the  young 
man  has  the  benefit  of  the  minister's  carriages,  boxes  at  the 
theatre,  and  invitations.  The  Emperor  of  Russia  would  be 
very  glad  to  give  fifty  thousand  francs  a  year  for  such  a  mar- 
velously  groomed  and  carefully  curled  Constitutional  poodle ; 
it  is  such  a  good  guard  ;  such  an  amiable,  sweet-tempered, 
docile  animal ;  so  fond  and— faithful  !  But,  alas  !  the  private 
secretary  is  not  to  be  grown,  found,  discovered,  or  developed 


276  LES  EMPLOYES. 

anywhere  save  in  the  hotbeds  of  a  representative  government. 
Under  an  absolute  monarch  you  can  only  have  courtiers  and 
servitors ;  whereas  with  a  Charter,  free  men  will  serve  you, 
and  flatter  you,  and  fawn  upon  you.  Wherefore  ministers  in 
France  are  more  fortunate  than  women  or  crowned  kings ; 
they  have  somebody  to  understand  them.  Perhaps,  at  the 
same  time,  private  secretaries  are  as  much  to  be  pitied  as 
women  or  white  paper — they  must  take  all  that  is  put  upon 
them.  Like  a  virtuous  wife,  a  private  secretary  is  bound  to 
display  his  talents  in  private  only,  and  for  his  minister.  If  he 
exhibits  his  abilities  in  public,  he  is  ruined.  Therefore  a 
private  secretary  is  a  friend  given  by  the  Government.  But 
to  return  to  our  Government  offices. 

Three  office  messengers  lived  in  harmony  in  La  Billardi&re's 
division,  to  wit,  one  messenger  for  the  two  offices ;  another 
shared  by  the  two  chief  clerks ;  and  a  third  for  the  head  of 
the  division  exclusively.  All  three  were  clothed  and  warmed 
at  the  public  expense ;  all  three  wore  the  well-known  livery — 
royal  blue  with  a  scarlet  piping  for  an  undress  uniform,  and  a 
wide  red-white-and-blue  galoon  for  state  occasions.  La.Billar- 
diere's  man  had  been  put  into  an  usher's  uniform.  The 
secretary-general,  willing  to  flatter  the  self-love  of  a  minister's 
cousin,  permitted  an  encroachment  which  reflected  glory 
upon  the  administration.  These  three  messengers  were  verit- 
able pillars  of  the  department  and  experts  in  bureaucratic 
customs.  They  wanted  for  nothing  ;  they  were  well  warmed 
and  clothed  at  the  expense  of  the  State ;  and  well-to-do, 
because  they  were  frugal.  They  probed  every  man  in  the 
department  to  the  quick  ;  for  the  one  interest  in  their  lives 
consisted  in  watching  the  clerks  and  studying  their  hobbies. 
Wherefore  they  knew  exactly  how  far  it  was  safe  to  go  in 
the  matter  of  loans,  performing  their  commissions  with  the 
utmost  discretion,  undertaking  errands  to  the  pawnbroker, 
buying  pawntickets,  lending  money  without  interest.  No  one, 
however,  borrowed  any  sum  however  trifling  without  giving 


LES  EMPLOYES.  277 

a  gratuity;  and  as   the  loans  were  usually  very  small,   the 
practice  was  equivalent  to  the  payment  of  a  usurious  interest. 

The  three  masterless  servants  had  a  salary  of  nine  hundred 
francs ;  New  Year's  tips  and  perquisites  raised  the  income  to 
twelve  hundred;  and  they  were  in  a  position  to  make  almost 
as  much  again  out  of  the  clerks,  for  all  the  breakfasts  of  those 
who  breakfasted  passed  through  their  hands.  In  some  Govern- 
ment offices  the  doorkeeper  actually  provides  the  breakfasts. 
The  doorkeeper's  place  in  the  finance  department  had  been 
worth  something  like  four  thousand  francs  to  fat  old  Thuillier 
senior,  whose  son  was  now  a  clerk  in  La  Billardiere's  division. 
Sometimes  attendants  feel  a  five-franc  piece  slipped  into  the 
palm  of  their  right  hands  if  a  petitioner  is  in  a  hurry,  an  occur- 
rence which  they  take  with  rare  impassibility.  The  seniors 
only  wear  their  uniform  when  on  duty,  and  go  out  in  plain 
clothes. 

The  messenger  of  the  general  office  was  the  best  off",  for  he 
exploited  the  staff"  of  clerks.  He  was  a  thick-set,  corpulent  man 
of  sixty,  with  bristling  white  hair,  an  apoplectic  neck,  a  com- 
,  mon  pimpled  countenance,  gray  eyes,  and  a  mouth  like  a 
stove-door;  here  you  have  a  sketch  of  Antoine,  the  oldest 
messenger  in  the  department.  Antoine  had  sent  for  his 
nephews  from  Echelles  in  Savoy,  and  found  places  for  them ; 
Laurent  with  the  chief  clerks,  Gabriel  with  the  head  of  the 
division.  The  two  Savoyards  were  dressed  like  their  uncle, 
in  broadcloth.  As  to  appearance,  they  were  simply  ordinary 
servants  in  uniform.  At  night  they  took  checks  at  a  subsidized 
theatre  (La  Billardiere  had  obtained  the  places  for  them). 
Both  had  married  skilled  lace-cleaners,  who  also  undertook 
fine  darning  and  repairs  of  cashmere  shawls.  As  the  uncle 
was  a  bachelor,  the  whole  family  lived  together,  and  lived 
very  much  more  comfortably  than  most  chief  clerks.  Gabriel 
and  Laurent,  having  only  been  a  matter  of  ten  years  in  the 
service,  had  not  yet  learned  to  look  down  upon  the  govern- 
ment   costume;    they    went   abroad    in    uniform,    proud    as 


278  LES  EMPLOYES. 

dramatic  authors  after  a  success  from  a  pecuniary  point  of 
view.  The  uncle,  whom  they  took  for  a  very  astute  person, 
and  served  with  blind  devotion,  gradually  initiated  them  into 
the  mysteries  of  the  craft. 

The  three  had  just  opened  the  offices.  Between  seven  and 
eight  they  used  to  sweep  out  the  offices,  read  the  newspapers, 
or  discuss  the  politics  of  the  division  with  other  porters,  after 
the  manner  of  their  kind,  with  due  exchange  of  information. 
Modern  domestic  servants  are  perfectly  acquainted  with  the 
affairs  of  the  family  ;  and  the  servants  of  the  department,  like 
spiders  in  the  middle  of  a  web,  could  feel  the  slightest  dis- 
turbance in  any  part  of  it. 

It  was  a  Thursday  morning,  the  day  after  the  minister's 
reception  and  Mme.  Rabourdin's  At  Home.  Uncle  Antoine, 
with  the  assistance  of  his  nephews,  was  shaving  in  the  ante- 
chamber on  the  third  floor,  when  the  arrival  of  one  of  the 
clerks  took  them  all  by  surprise. 

"That  is  Monsieur  Dutocq,"  remarked  Antoine;  "I  know 
him  by  the  way  he  comes  sneaking  in.  He  always  goes  about 
as  if  he  were  skating,  he  does.  He  drops  down  upon  you* 
before  you  can  tell  which  way  he  came.  Yesterday,  he  was 
the  last  to  leave  the  office,  a  thing  that  hasn't  happened  three 
times  since  he  has  been  here." 

A  man  of  thirty-eight,  with  a  long  visage  of  a  bilious  hue, 
and  close-cropped  woolly  gray  hair  ;  a  low  forehead,  thick 
eyebrows  that  met  in  the  middle,  a  crooked  nose,  compressed 
lips,  light  green  eyes  that  never  looked  you  in  the  face  ;  a 
tall  figure,  one  shoulder  slightly  larger  than  the  other ;  a 
brown  coat,  black  waistcoat,  a  silk  handkerchief  round  the 
throat,  buff  trousers,  black  woolen  stockings,  and  shoes  with 
mud-bedraggled  laces ;  here  you  have  M.  Dutocq,  senior  clerk 
in  Rabourdin's  office.  Dutocq  was  incompetent  and  indolent. 
He  detested  his  chief.  Nothing  could  be  more  natural.  Ra- 
bourdin  had  no  weakness  to  flatter,  no  vice  to  which  Dutocq 
could  pander.     The  chief  was  far  too  high-minded  to  injure  a 


LES  EMPLOYES.  279 

subordinate  ;  but,  at  the  same  time,  he  was  too  clear-sighted 
to  be  duped  by  appearances.  Dutocq  only  remained  on  suf- 
ferance, through  Rabourdin's  generosity ;  there  was  no  pros- 
pect of  advancement  unless  there  was  a  change  of  chief. 
Dutocq  was  well  aware  that  he  himself  was  not  fit  to  fill  a 
higher  post,  but  he  knew  enough  of  Government  offices  to 
understand  that  incompetence  does  not  prevent  a  man  from 
affixing  his  signature  to  the  work  of  others.  He  would  get 
out  of  the  difficulty  by  finding  a  Rabourdin  among  the 
draughting  clerks,  for  La  Billardiere's  promotion  had  been  a 
striking  and  disastrous  object  lesson  to  the  department.  Spite 
when  combined  with  self-interest  is  a  very  fair  substitute  for 
intelligence  ;  and  Dutocq  was  very  spiteful,  and  very  much 
bent  on  his  own  interests.  Wherefore  he  had  set  himself  to 
consolidate  his  position  by  taking  the  office  of  spy  upon  him- 
self. After  1816  he  became  a  bigot  of  the  deepest  dye;  he 
foresaw  that  persons  then  indiscriminately  labeled  ''Jesuits," 
by  fools  that  knew  no  better,  would  shortly  be  in  favor.  He 
belonged  to  the  congregation,  though  he  was  not  admitted  to 
its  inner  circles.  He  went  from  office  to  office,  sounded  con- 
sciences with  coarse  jokes,  and  returned  to  paraphrase  his 
"reports"  for  des  Lupeaulx's  benefit.  Dcs  Lupeaulx  was 
kept  informed  in  this  way  of  everything  that  went  on ;  and, 
indeed,  the  secretary-general's  profound  knowledge  of  the  ins 
and  outs  of  affairs  often  astonished  the  minister.  Dutocq  in 
good  earnest  was  the  Bonneau  of  a  political  Bonneau ;  he  was 
intriguing  for  the  honor  of  taking  des  Lupeaulx's  secret  mes- 
sages, and  des  Lupeaulx  tolerated  the  unclean  creature,  think- 
ing that  he  might  sometime  make  him  useful,  were  it  only  to 
get  himself  or  some  great  person  out  of  a  scrape  by  soma 
shameful  marriage.  On  some  such  good  fortune  indeed 
Dutocq  was  reckoning,  for  he  remained  a  bachelor.  The  pair 
understood  one  another.  Dutocq  had  succeeded  M,  Poiret 
senior,  who  retired  to  a  boarding-house,  and  was  put  on  a 
pension  in  18 14,  at  which  time  there  had  been  a  grand  general 


280  LES  EMPLOYES. 

reform  of  the  staff.  Dutocq  lived  on  a  fifth  floor,  in  a  house 
with  a  passage  entry  in  the  Rue  Saint-Louis-Saint-Honore. 
As  an  enthusiastic  amateur  of  old  prints,  it  was  his  ambition 
to  possess  complete  collections  of  the  works  of  Rembrandt, 
Charlet,  Sylvestre,  Audran,  Callot,  Albrecht  Diirer,  and 
others ;  and,  like  most  collectors  v/ho  live  by  themselves,  he 
aspired  to  pick  these  things  up  cheaply.  Dutocq  took  his 
meals  in  a  boarding-house  in  the  Rue  de  Beaune,  and  spent 
his  evenings  at  the  Palais  Royal.  Sometimes  he  went  to  the 
play,  thanks  to  du  Bruel,  who  would  give  him  an  author's 
ticket  every  week.     A  word  as  to  du  Bruel. 

Du  Bruel  came  to  the  office  simply  for  the  sake  of  drawing 
his  salary  and  believing  and  saying  that  he  was  the  chief 
clerk's  assistant ;  but  Sebastien  did  his  work,  as  has  been 
seen,  and  received  a  very  inadequate  return  for  it.  Du  Bruel 
did  the  minor  theatres  for  a  ministerial  paper,  for  which  he 
also  wrote  articles  to  order.  His  position  was  known,  defined, 
and  unassailable.  Nor  did  he  fail  in  any  of  the  little  diplo- 
matic shifts  that  gain  a  man  the  good-will  of  his  fellow-creatures. 
He  always  offered  Mme.  Rabourdin  a  box  on  a  first  night,  for 
instance,  and  called  for  her  and  took  her  back  in  a  carriage, 
an  attention  of  which  she  was  very  sensible.  Rabourdin  was 
very  easy  with  his  subordinates,  very  little  given  to  torment- 
ing them ;  so  he  allowed  du  Bruel  to  attend  rehearsals  and  to 
come  and  go  and  work  at  his  vaudevilles  pretty  much  as  he 
pleased.  M.  le  Due  de  Chaulieu  was  aware  that  du  Bruel  was 
writing  a  novel,  and  meant  to  dedicate  the  book  to  him.  Du 
Bruel  accordingly  dressed  as  carelessly  as  a  vaudevilliste ;  in 
the  morning  he  appeared  in  footed  trousers  and  thin-soled 
shoes,  a  superannuated  waistcoat,  a  greenish  black  greatcoat 
and  a  black  cravat,  but  at  night  he  was  fashionably  arrayed, 
for  he  aimed  at  being  a  gentleman. 

Du  Bruel  lived,  for  sufficient  reasons,  with  Florine,  the 
actress  for  whom  he  wrote  parts  ;  and  Florine  at  that  time 
lodged  with  TuUia,  a  dancer  more  remarkable  for  beauty  than 


LES  EMPLOYES.  281 

for  talent.  This  arrangement  permitted  him  to  see  a  good 
deal  of  the  Due  de  Rhetore,  oldest  son  of  the  Due  de  Chau- 
lieu,  a  favorite  with  the  King.  The  Due  de  Chaulieu  had 
obtained  the  cross  of  the  Legion  of  Honor  for  du  Bruel  after 
his  eleventh  play  on  a  topic  of  the  hour.  Du  Bruel — or  de 
Cursv,  if  vou  prefer  it — was  at  work  at  the  moment  on  a 
drama  in  five  acts  for  the  Frangais.  Sebastien  had  a  strong 
liking  for  the  assistant,  who  sometimes  gave  him  an  order  for 
the  pit.  Du  Bruel  used  to  point  out  any  doubtful  passages 
beforehand,  and  Sebastien,  with  the  sincerity  of  youth,  would 
applaud  with  all  his  might ;  he  regarded  du  Bruel  as  a  great 
man  of  letters.  Once  it  happened  that  a  vaudeville  written, 
as  usual,  with  two  collaborators  had  been  hissed  in  several 
places. 

"The  public  find  out  the  parts  written  in  collaboration," 
du  Bruel  remarked  next  day  to  Sebastien. 

"  Why  don't  you  write  it  all  yourself?  "  Sebastien  answered 
in  the  simplicity  of  his  heart. 

There  were  excellent  reasons  why  du  Bruel  sliould  not 
write  the  whole  himself.  He  was  the  third  part  of  a  dramatic 
author.  Few  people  are  aware  that  a  dramatic  author  is  a 
composite  being.  First,  there  is  the  Man  of  Ideas ;  it  is  his 
duty  to  find  the  subject  and  construct  the  framework  or 
scenario  of  the  vaudeville ;  the  Plodder  works  out  the  dia- 
logue, while  the  Man  of  Details  sets  the  couplets  to  music, 
arranges  the  choruses  and  the  accompaniments,  and  grafts  the 
songs  into  the  plot.  The  same  personage  also  looks  after  the 
practical  aspects  of  the  play  ;  he  sees  after  the  drawing  up  of 
the  placards,  and  never  leaves  the  manager  until  he  has  defi- 
nitely secured  the  representation  of  a  piece  written  by  the 
three  partners  for  the  following  day. 

Du  Bruel,  a  born  plodder,  was  in  the  habit  of  reading  new 
books  at  the  office,  and  picking  out  the  clever  bits ;  he  made 
a  note  of  these,  and  embroidered  his  dialogues  with  them. 
Cursy  (that  was  his  nom  de  guerre^  was  held  in  esteem  by  his 

K 


282  LES  EMPLOYES. 

collaborators  on  account  of  his  impeccable  accuracy;  the 
Man  of  Ideas  could  feel  sure  that  Cursy  would  comprehend 
him,  and  might  fold  his  arms.  His  popularity  among  the 
clerks  was  sufficient  to  bring  them  out  in  a  body  to  applaud 
his  pieces,  for  he  had  the  reputation  of  a  "  good-fellow,"  and 
he  deserved  it.  He  was  free-handed  ;  it  was  never  very  diffi- 
cult to  screw  a  bowl  of  punch  or  ices  out  of  him,  and  he 
would  lend  fifty  francs  and  never  ask  for  the  money.  Du 
Bruel  was  a  man  of  regular  habits ;  he  had  a  house  in  the 
country  at  Aulnay,  and  found  investments  for  his  money. 
Beside  his  salary  of  four  thousand  five  hundred  francs,  he  had 
a  pension  of  twelve  hundred  from  the  civil  list,  and  eight 
hundred  francs  out  of  the  hundred  thousand  crowns  voted  by 
the  Chamber  for  the  encouragement  of  the  arts.  Add  to  these 
various  sources  of  income  some  nine  thousand  francs  brought 
in  by  the  "thirds,"  "fourths,"  and  "halves"  of  vaudevilles 
at  three  different  theatres,  and  you  will  understand  at  once 
that  du  Bruel  was  broad,  rotund,  and  fat,  and  looked  like  a 
man  of  substance.  As  to  his  morals,  he  was  Tullia's  lover ; 
and,  as  usual,  believed  that  he  was  preferred  to  her  protector, 
the  brilliant  Due  de  Rhetore. 

Dutocq  beheld,  not  without  dismay,  the  liaison{z.%  he  called 
it)  between  des  Lupeaulx  and  Mme.  Rabourdin.  His  smoth- 
ered fury  was  increased.  What  was  more,  his  prying  eyes 
could  not  fail  to  detect  that  Rabourdin  was  throwing  himself 
into  some  great  work  outside  his  official  duties,  and  he  de- 
spaired of  finding  out  anything  about  it,  whereas  little  Sebas- 
tien  was  either  wholly  or  partly  in  the  secret.  Dutocq  had 
tried  successfully  to  make  an  ally  of  M.  Godard,  Baudoyer's 
assistant,  du  Bruel's  colleague ;  the  high  esteem  in  which 
Dutocq  held  Baudoyer  had  led  to  an  acquaintance.  Not  that 
Dutocq  was  sincere ;  but  by  crying  up  Baudoyer  and  saying 
nothing  of  Rabourdin,  he  satisfied  his  spleen,  after  the  fashion 
of  petty  minds. 

Joseph  Godard  was  Mitral's  cousin  by  the  mother's  side. 


LES  EMPLOYES.  28S 

His  relationship  to  Baudoyer,  therefore,  was  distant  enough, 
but  he  had  founded  hopes  upon  it  ;  he  meant  to  marry  Mile. 
Baudoyer,  and  consequently  Isidore  was  a  brilliant  genius  in 
his  eyes.  He  professed  a  high  respect  for  Elizabeth  and  Mme. 
Saillard,  failing  to  perceive  that  Mme.  Baudoyer  was  "sim- 
mering" Fallcix  for  her  daughter;  and  he  used  to  bring  little 
presents  for  Mile.  Baudoyer — artificial  flowers,  sugar-plums  on 
New  Year's  Day,  and  pretty  boxes  on  her  birthday.  Godard 
was  a  man  of  six-and-twenty,  a  dull  plodder,  well-conducted 
as  a  young  lady,  humdrum  and  apathetic.  Cafes,  cigars,  and 
horse  exercise  he  held,  in  abhorrence ;  he  went  to  bed  regu- 
larly at  ten,  and  rose  at  seven.  His  various  social  talents 
brought  him  into  high  favor  with  the  Saillards  and  Baudoyers ; 
he  could  play  dance  music  on  the  flageolet ;  and  in  the  Na- 
tional Guard  he  took  a  fife  in  the  band  to  avoid  night-duty. 
Natural  history  was  Godard's  special  hobby.  He  collected 
minerals  and  shells ;  he  could  stuff  birds  \  his  rooms  were 
warehouses  of  curiosities  picked  up  for  small  sums ;  he  had 
landscape-stones,  models  of  palaces  in  cork,  various  petrified 
objects  from  the  springs  of  Saint-AUyre  at  Clermont  (Au- 
vergne),  and  the  like.  Godard  used  to  buy  up  scent-bottles 
to  hold  his  specimens  of  baryta,  his  sulphates,  salts,  magnesia, 
coral,  and  the  like.  He  kept  collections  of  butterflies  in 
frames  ;  he  covered  the  walls  with  dried  fish-skins  and  Chinese 
umbrellas. 

Godard  lived  with  his  sister,  a  flower-maker,  in  the  Rue  de 
Richelieu.  But  though  this  model  young  man  was  much  ad- 
mired by  mothers  of  daughters,  it  is  a  fact  that  he  was  held  in 
much  contempt  by  his  sister's  work-girls,  and  more  particularly 
by  the  young  lady  at  the  desk,  who  had  long  hoped  to  entangle 
him.  He  was  thin  and  slim,  and  of  average  lieight ;  there 
were  dark  circles  about  his  eyes ;  his  beard  was  scanty ;  his 
breath  was  bad  (according  to  Bixiou).  Joseph  Godard  took 
little  pains  with  himself;  his  clothes  did  not  fit  him,  his 
trousers  were  large  and  baggy  ;  he  wore  white  stockings  all 


284  LES  EMPLOYES. 

the  year  round,  a  narrow-brimmed  hat,  and  laced  shoes.  At 
the  office  he  sat  in  a  cane  chair  with  the  seat  broken  through, 
and  a  round  leather  cushion  on  the  top  of  it.  He  complained  a 
good  deal  of  indigestion.  His  principal  failing  was  a  tendency 
to  propose  picnics  and  Sunday  excursions  in  the  summer  to 
Montmorency,  or  a  walk  to  a  dairy  on  the  Boulevard  Mont 
Parnasse. 

After  the  acquaintance  between  Dutocq  and  Godard  had 
lasted  for  some  six  months,  Dutocq  began  to  go  now  and 
again  to  Mile.  Godard's,  hoping  to  do  a  piece  of  business  in 
the  house,  or  to  discover  some  feminine  treasure. 

And  so  it  came  to  pass  that  in  Dutocq  and  Godard  Bau- 
doyer  had  two  men  to  sing  his  praises  in  the  office.  M. 
Saillard  was  incapable  of  discovering  Dutocq's  real  character ; 
sometimes  he  would  drop  in  to  speak  to  him  at  his  desk. 
Young  La  Billardidre,  one  of  Baudoyer's  supernumeraries, 
belonged  to  this  set.  Cleverer  men  laughed  not  a  little  at 
the  alliance  of  Godard,  Dutocq,  and  Baudoyer.  Bixiou 
dubbed  it  la  Triniie  sans  Esprit,  and  christened  little  La 
Billardiere  "the  Paschal  Lamb." 

'■'  You  are  up  early,"  said  Antoine,  with  a  laugh,  as  Dutocq 
came  in. 

"And  as  for  you,  Antoine,"  returned  Dutocq,  "it  is  plain 
that  the  newspapers  sometimes  come  before  you  give  them  out 
to  us." 

"It  happens  so  to-day,"  said  Antoine,  not  a  whit  discon- 
certed ;  "  they  never  come  in  at  the  same  time  for  two  days 
together." 

The  nephews  looked  furtively  at  one  another,  as  if  to  say 
admiringly  :  "  What  a  cool  hand  !  " 

"He  brings  me  in  two  sous  on  his  breakfasts,"  muttered 
Antoine  as  Dutocq  shut  the  door,  "  but  I  would  as  soon  be 
without  it  to  have  him  out  of  the  department." 

"Ah  !  you  are  not  the  first  to-day,  Monsieur  Sebastien,"  he 
remarked,  a  quarter  of  an  hour  afterward. 


LES  EMPLOYES.  286 

"  Who  ever  can  have  come  !  "  the  poor  boy  asked,  and  his 
face  turned  white. 

"  Monsieur  Dutocq,"  said  Laurent. 

Virgin  natures  possess  an  unusual  degree  of  that  inexplicable 
power  of  second-sight  which  perhaps  depends  upon  an  unjaded 
nervous  system,  upon  the  sensibility  of  an  organization  that 
may  be  called  new.  Sebastien  had  guessed  that  Dutocq  hated 
the  venerated  Rabourdin.  So  Laurent  had  scarcely  pro- 
nounced the  name  before  an  ugly  presentiment  flashed  upon 
the  supernumerary. 

"  I  suspected  as  much,"  he  exclaimed,  and  he  was  off  like 
an  arrow  down  the  corridor. 

"There  will  be  a  row  in  the  offices,"  remarked  Antoine, 
shaking  his  white  head  as  he  put  on  his  uniform.  "  It  is 
easy  to  see  that  Monsieur  le  Baron  is  going  to  his  last  account. 
Yes,  Madame  Gruget,  his  nurse,  told  me  that  he  would  not 
live  the  day  out.  What  a  stir  there  will  be  here,  to  be  sure  ! 
Go  and  see  if  the  stoves  are  burning  up,  some  of  you.  Sabre 
de  boisf^  all  of  them  will  come  tumbling  in  upon  us  in  a 
minute." 

"The  poor  little  youngster  was  in  a  fine  taking  when  he 
heard  that  that  Jesuit  of  a  Monsieur  Dutocq  was  in  before 
him,  and  that's  a  fact,"  commented  Laurent. 

"  Well,  I  for  one  have  told  him  (for,  after  all,  one  can't  do 
less  than  tell  a  good  clerk  the  truth,  and  what  I  call  a  good 
clerk  is  a  clerk  like  this  youngster,  that  pays  up  his  ten  francs 
sharp  on  New  Year's  Day),  I  have  told  him,  I  say  :  '  The  more 
you  do,  the  more  they  will  want  you  to  do,  and  they  will  leave 
you  where  you  are.'  But  it  is  no  good.  He  will  not  listen 
to  me.  He  kills  himself  with  stopping  till  five  o'clock,  an 
hour  after  everybody  else"  (Antoine  shrugged  his  shoulders). 
"All  nonsense;  that's  not  the  way  to  get  on!  And  here's 
proof  of  it — nothing  has  been  said  yet  of  taking  on  the  poor 
boy  as  an  established  clerk,  and  an  excellent  one  he  would 

*  Wooden  sword. 


286  LES  EMPLOYES. 

make.     After  two  years  too  !     It  sets  your  back  up,  upon  my 

word!" 

*'  Monsieur  Rabourdin  has  a  liking  for  Monsieur  Sebas- 
tien,"  said  Laurent. 

"  But  Monsieur  Rabourdin  is  not  a  minister,"  retorted  An- 
toine,  "  It  will  be  a  hot  day  when  he  is  a  minister  ;  the  fowls 
will  cut  their  teeth.  He  is  much  too — never  mind  what ! 
When  I  think  that  I  take  round  the  muster-roll  of  salaries,  to 
be  receipted  by  humbugs  that  stop  away  and  do  what  they 
please,  while  little  La  Roche  is  working  himself  to  death,  I 
wonder  whether  God  gives  a  thought  to  Government  offices. 
And  as  for  these  pets  of  Monsieur  le  Marechal  and  Monsieur 
le  Due  ;  what  do  they  give  you  ?  They  thank  you  "  (Antoine 
made  a  patronizing  nod).  "  '  Thanks,  my  dear  Antoine.'  A 
pack  of  do-nothings ;  let  them  work,  or  they  will  bring  on 
another  Revolution !  You  should  have  seen  whether  they 
came  it  over  us  like  this  in  Monsieur  Robert  Lindet's  time  j 
for,  such  as  you  see  me,  I  came  to  this  shop  under  Monsieur 
Robert  Lindet.  The  clerks  used  to  work  when  he  was  here  ! 
You  ought  to  have  seen  those  quill-drivers  scratching  away  till 
midnight,  all  the  stoves  gone  out,  and  nobody  so  much  as 
noticing  it ;  but  for  one  thing,  the  guillotine  was  there  too  ; 
and  no  need  to  say  it  was  a  very  different  thing  from 
simply  taking  down  their  names  as  we  do  now  when  they 
come  late." 

"Daddy  Antoine,"  began  Gabriel,  "since  you  are  in  a 
talking  humor  this  morning,  what  do  you  make  out  that  a 
clerk  is?" 

"A  clerk  !  "  Antoine  returned  gravely.  "A  clerk  is  a  man 
that  sits  in  an  office  and  writes.  What  am  I  saying?  Where 
should  we  be  without  clerks?  Just  go  and  look  after  your 
stoves  and  never  say  a  word  against  the  clerks.  The  stove  in 
the  large  room  draws  like  fury,  Gabriel ;  you  must  shut  off 
some  of  the  draught." 

Antoine  took  up  his  position  at  the  stairhead,  so  that  he 


LES  EMPLOYES.  287 

could  see  all  the  clerks  as  they  came  in  under  the  arched  gate- 
way. He  knew  everybody  in  every  office  in  the  department, 
and  used  to  watch  their  ways  and  notice  the  differences  in 
their  dress.  And  here,  before  entering  upon  the  drama,  it  is 
necessary  to  give  portraits  in  outline  of  the  principal  actors  in 
La  Billardidre's  division ;  for  not  merely  will  the  reader  make 
the  acquaintance  of  the  various  types  of  the  genus  clerk,  but 
he  will  find  in  them  the  justification  of  Rabourdin's  observa- 
tions, and  likewise  of  the  title  of  this  essentially  Parisian 
Study. 

And  on  this  head,  let  there  be  no  misapprehensions  :  from 
the  point  of  view  of  poverty  and  eccentricity  there  are  clerks 
and  clerks,  just  as  there  are  fagots  and  fagots.  In  the  first 
place,  you  must  distinguish  between  the  clerk  in  Paris  and  his 
provincial  brother.  The  provincial  clerk  is  well  off.  He  is 
spaciously  housed ;  he  has  a  garden  ;  he  is  comfortable,  as  a 
rule,  in  his  office.  Sound  wine  is  not  dear ;  he  does  not  dine 
off  horse-steaks  ;  he  is  acquainted  with  the  luxury  of  dessert. 
People  may  not  know  precisely  what  he  cats,  but  every  one 
will  tell  you  that  he  does  not  "eat  up  his  salary."  So  far 
from  running  into  debt,  he  positively  saves  on  his  income. 
If  he  is  a  bachelor,  mothers  of  daughters  greet  him  as  he 
passes;  if  he  is  married,  he  and  his  wife  go  to  balls  at  the 
receiver-general's,  at  the  prefecture,  at  the  sub-prefecture. 
People  take  an  interest  in  his  character ;  he  rriakes  conquests ; 
he  has  a  reputation  for  intelligence ;  his  loss  would  probably 
be  felt ;  the  whole  town  knows  him,  and  takes  an  interest  in 
his  wife  and  family.  He  gives  evening  parties ;  he  may  be- 
come a  deputy  if  he  has  private  means,  and  his  father-in-law 
is  in  easy  circumstances.  His  wife  is  always  under  the  minute 
and  inquisitive  spy  system  of  a  small  town  ;  if  he  is  unfortunate 
in  his  married  life,  he  knows  it,  whereas  a  clerk  at  Paris  is 
not  bound  to  hear  of  his  misfortune.  Lastly,  the  provincial 
clerk  is  "  somebody,"  while  the  Parisian  is  almost  "  nobody." 

The  next  comer  was  a  draughting  clerk,  Phellion  by  name, 


288  LES  EMPLOYES. 

a  respectable  father  of  a  family.  He  was  in  Rabourdin's 
office.  His  chief's  influence  had  obtained  education  for  each 
of  his  two  boys  at  half-cost  at  the  College  Henri  IV.,  a  well- 
timed  favor ;  for  Phellion  had  a  third  child,  a  girl,  who  was 
being  educated  free  of  expense  in  a  boarding-school  where  her 
mother  gave  music  lessons,  and  her  father  taught  history  and 
geography  of  an  evening.  Phellion  was  a  man  of  forty-five, 
and  a  sergeant-major  in  the  National  Guard.  He  was  very 
ready  to  give  sympathy ;  but  he  never  had  a  centime  to  spare. 
He  lived,  not  very  far  from  the  Sourds-Muet,  in  the  Rue  du 
Faubourg  Saint-Jacques,  on  a  floor  of  a  house,  with  a  garden 
attached.  "  His  place,"  to  use  his  own  expression,  only  cost 
four  hundred  francs.  The  draughting  clerk  was  proud  of  his 
position,  and  rejoiced  in  his  lot ;  he  worked  industriously  for 
the  Government,  believed  that  he  was  serving  his  country, 
and  boasted  of  his  indifference  to  party  politics ;  he  looked 
at  nothing  but  Authority.  Sometimes,  to  his  delight,  M. 
Rabourdin  would  ask  him  to  stay  for  half  an  hour  to  finish  some 
piece  of  work.  Then  Phellion  would  go  to  the  boarding- 
school  in  the  Rue  Notre  Dame  des  Champs,  where  his  wife 
taught  music,  and  say  to  the  Demoiselles  La  Grave  with  whom 
he  dined — 

"  Affairs  compelled  me  to  stay  late  at  the  office,  mesdemoi- 
selles.  When  a  man  is  in  the  service  of  the  Government,  he 
is  not  his  own  master." 

Phellion  had  compiled  various  school-books  in  the  form  of 
question  and  answer  for  the  use  of  ladies'  schools.  These 
"small  but  condensed  treatises,"  as  he  called  them,  were  on 
sale  at  the  University  booksellers'  under  the  name  of  "  His- 
torical and  Geographical  Catechisms."  He  felt  it  incumbent 
upon  him  to  present  Mme.  Rabourdin  with  each  of  these 
works  as  they  came  out,  taking  a  copy  printed  on  hand-made 
paper  and  bound  in  crimson  morocco.  On  these  occasions  he 
appeared  in  the  Rue  Duphot  in  full  dress :  silk  small  clothes, 
silk  stockings,  shoes  with  gold  buckles,  and  so  forth.     M. 


LES  EMPLOYES.  289 

Phellion  gave  beer  and  patty  soirees  on  Thursday  evenings 
after  the  boarders  had  gone  to  bed.  They  played  bouillotte, 
with  five  sous  in  the  pool  ;  and  in  spite  of  the  slenderness  of 
the  stakes,  it  once  fell  out  that  M.  Laudigeois,  a  registrar's 
clerk,  lost  ten  francs  in  an  evening  by  reckless  gambling. 

The  walls  of  the  sitting-room  were  covered  with  a  green 
American  paper  with  a  red  border,  and  adorned  with  portraits 
of  the  Royal  family.  The  visitor  might  behold  his  majesty 
the  King,  the  Dauphiness,  and  Madame  ;  with  a  pair  of 
framed  engravings,  to  wit,  Mazeppa,  after  Horace  Vernet, 
and  The  Pauper's  Funeral,  after  Vigneron.  This  last-named 
work  of  art,  according  to  Phellion,  was  "  sublime  in  its  con- 
ception. It  ought  to  console  the  lower  classes  by  reminding 
them  that  they  had  more  devoted  friends  than  men,  friends 
whose  affections  go  beyond  the  grave."  From  those  words 
you  can  guess  that  Phellion  was  the  sort  of  man  to  take  his 
children  to  the  Cimetiere  de  I'Ouest  on  All-Souls'  Day,  and 
point  out  the  twenty  square  yards  of  earth  (purchased  "  in 
perpetuity")  where  his  father  and  his  mother-in-law  lay  buried. 
"We  sliall  come  here  some  day,"  he  used  to  say,  to  familiar- 
ize his  offspring  with  the  idea  of  death. 

It  was  one  of  Phellion's  great  amusements  to  explore  Paris. 
He  had  treated  himself  to  a  map.  Antony,  Arcueil,  Bi6vre, 
Fontenay-aux-Roses,  and  Aulnay,  all  of  them  famous  as  the 
abode  of  more  than  one  great  writer,  he  knew  already  by 
heart,  and  he  hoped  in  time  to  know  all  the  suburbs  on  the 
West  side.  His  eldest  son  he  destined  for  the  service  of  the 
Government ;  the  second  was  to  go  to  the  Polytechnic.  He 
often  used  to  say  to  his  eldest:  "  When  you  have  the  honor  to 
be  employed  by  the  Government  !  "  but,  at  the  same  time, 
he  suspected  the  boy  of  a  turn  for  the  exact  sciences,  and 
strove  to  repress  the  tendency,  holding  in  reserve  the  extremity 
of  leaving  him  to  shift  for  himself  if  he  persisted  in  his  ways. 

Phellion  had  never  ventured  to  ask  M.  Rabourdin  to  dine 
with  him,  though  he  would  have  regarded  such  a  day  as  one 
19 


290  LES  EMPLOYES. 

of  the  greatest  in  his  life.  He  used  to  say  that  if  he  could 
leave  one  of  his  sons  to  walk  in  the  footsteps  of  M.  Rabourdin, 
he  should  die  the  happiest  father  in  the  world.  He  dinned 
the  praises  of  the  worthy  and  much-respected  chief  into  tlie 
ears  of  the  Demoiselles  La  Grave,  till  those  ladies  longed  to 
see  M.  Rabourdin,  as  a  lad  might  crave  a  glimpse  of  M.  de 
Chateaubriand.  They  would  have  been  very  glad,  they  said, 
to  be  intrusted  with  the  education  of  his  "  young  lady."  If 
the  minister's  carriage  chanced  to  come  in  or  out,  Phellion 
took  off  his  hat  very  respectfully  whether  there  was  anybody 
in  it  or  not,  and  said  that  it  would  be  well  for  France  if  every- 
body held  authority  in  sufficient  honor  to  revere  it  even  in  its 
insignia. 

When  Rabourdin  sent  for  him  "downstairs"  to  explain 
his  work,  Phellion  summoned  up  all  his  intelligence,  and 
listened  to  his  chief's  lightest  words  as  a  dilettante  listens  to 
an  air  at  the  Italiens.  He  sat  silent  in  the  office,  his  feet 
perched  aloft  on  his  wooden  foot-rest ;  he  never  stirred  from 
his  place;  he  conscientiously  gave  his  mind  to  his  work.  In 
administrative  correspondence  he  expressed  himself  with 
solemnity ;  he  took  everything  seriously ;  he  emphasized  the 
minister's  orders  by  translating  them  into  pompous  phra- 
seology. Yet,  great  as  he  was  upon  propriety,  a  disastrous 
thing  had  happened  once  in  his  career — a  disaster  indeed. 
In  spite  of  the  minute  care  with  which  he  drafted  his  letters, 
he  once  allowed  a  phrase  thus  conceived  to  escape  him  : 

"You  will  therefore  repair  to  the  closet  with  the  necessary 
paper." 

The  copying-clerks,  delighted  at  the  chance  of  a  laugh  at 
tlie  expense  of  the  harmless  creature,  went  to  consult  Ra- 
bourdin behind  Phellion's  back.  Rabourdin,  knowing  his 
draughting  clerk's  character,  could  not  help  smiling  as  he 
indorsed  the  margin  with  a  note : 

"You  will  appear  at  the  private  office  with  the  documents 
indicated." 


LES,  EMPLOYES.  291 

The  alteration  was  shown  to  Phellion  j  he  studied  it, 
pondered  and  weighed  the  difference  between  the  expressions, 
and  candidly  admitted  that  it  would  have  taken  him  a  couple 
of  hours  to  find  the  equivalents.  "  Monsieur  Rabourdin  is  a 
man  of  genius!"  he  cried.  He  always  thought  that  his 
colleagues  had  shown  a  want  of  consideration  for  him  by 
referring  the  matter  so  promptly  to  the  chief;  but  he  had  too 
much  respect  for  the  established  order  of  things  not  to  admit 
that  they  had  acted  within  their  right,  and  so  much  the  more 
so  since  he,  Phellion,  was  absent  at  the  time.  Still,  in  their 
place,  he  himself  would  have  waited — there  was  no  pressing 
need  for  the  circular.  This  affair  cost  him  several  nights' 
rest.  If  any  one  wished  to  make  him  angry,  they  had  only 
to  remind  him  of  the  accursed  phrase  by  asking  as  he  went 
out,  "  Have  you  the  necessary  paper  ?  "  At  which  question 
the  worthy  draughting  clerk  would  turn  and  give  the  clerks  a 
withering  glance.  "  It  seems  to  me,  gentlemen,  that  your 
remark  is  extremely  unbecoming."  One  day,  however,  he 
waxed  so  wroth  that  Rabourdin  was  obliged  to  interfere,  and 
the  clerks  were  forbidden  to  afterward  make  any  allusions  to 
the  affair. 

M.  Phellion  looked  rather  like  a  meditative  ram.  His  face 
was  somewhat  colorless  and  marked  with  smallpox,  his  lips 
were  thick  and  underhung,  his  eyes  were  pale  blue,  and  in 
figure  he  was  rather  above  average  height.  Neat  in  his  person 
he  was  bound  to  be,  as  a  master  of  history  and  geography  in 
a  ladies'  school  \  he  wore  good  linen,  a  pleated  shirt-front,  an 
open  black  kerseymere  waistcoat  that  afforded  glimpses  of  the 
braces  which  his  daughter  embroidered  for  him,  a  diamond 
pin,  a  black  coat,  and  blue  trousers.  In  winter  he  adopted  a 
nut-brown  box-coat  with  three  capes,  and  it  was  his  wont  to 
carry  a  loaded  cane — "  a  precaution  rendered  necessary  by  the 
extreme  loneliness  of  some  pans  of  tlie  neighborhood."  He 
had  given  up  the  habit  of  taking  snuff,  a  reform  which  he  was 
wont  to  cite  as  a  striking  instance  of  the  command  that  a  man 


292  LES  EMPLOYES. 

may  gain  over  himself.  Having  what  he  called  a  "  fat  chest," 
it  was  his  wont  to  ascend  staircases  slowly  for  fear  of  con- 
tracting an  asthma. 

He  saluted  Antoine  with  dignity. 

A  copying  clerk,  an  odd  contrast  to  this  exemplary  worthy, 
immediately  followed.  Vimeux  was  a  young  fellow  of  five- 
and-twenty,  with  a  salary  of  fifteen  hundred  francs.  He  was 
well  made  and  slim-waisted  ;  his  eyes,  eyebrows,  and  beard 
were  as  black  as  jet ;  he  had  good  teeth  and  sweetly  pretty 
hands,  while  his  mustache  was  so  luxuriant  and  well-cared 
for  that  its  cultivation  might  have  been  his  principal  occupa- 
tion in  life.  Vimeux's  aptitude  for  his  work  was  so  great  that 
he  had  always  finished  it  long  before  anybody  else. 

"  He  is  a  gifted  young  man  !  "  Phellion  would  exclaim,  as 
he  saw  Vimeux  cross  his  legs,  at  a  loss  to  know  what  to  do 
with  the  rest  of  his  time. 

"And  look,  now  !  "  he  would  say  to  du  Bruel,  "how  ex- 
quisitely neat  it  is !  " 

Vimeux  breakfasted  off  a  roll  of  bread  and  a  glass  of  water, 
dined  at  Katcomb's  for  twenty  sous,  and  lived  in  furnished 
lodgings  at  twelve  francs  a  month.  Dress  was  his  one  joy 
and  pleasure  in  life.  He  ruined  himself  with  wonderful 
waistcoats,  tight-fitting  or  semi-fitting  trousers,  thin  boots, 
carefully  cut  coats  that  outlined  his  figure,  bewitching  collars, 
fresh  gloves,  and  hats.  His  hand  was  adorned  by  a  signet- 
ring,  which  he  wore  outside  his  glove;  he  carried  an  elegant 
walking-cane,  and  did  his  best  to  look  and  behave  like  a 
wealthy  young  man.  Toothpick  in  hand,  he  would  repair  to 
the  main  alley  in  the  Tuileries  gardens,  and  stroll  about, 
looking  for  all  the  world  like  a  millionaire  just  arisen  from 
table.  He  had  studied  the  art  of  twirling  a  cane  and  ogling 
with  an  eye  to  business,  a  V americaine,  as  Bixiou  said ;  for 
Vimeux  lived  in  the  hope  that  some  widow,  Englishwoman  or 
foreign  lady,  might  be  smitten  with  his  charms;  he  used  to 
laugh  to  show  his  fine  set  of  teeth ;   he  went  without  socks  to 


LES  EMPLOYES.  293 

have  his  hair  curled  every  day.  Vimeux  laid  it  down  as  a 
fixed  principle  that  an  eligible  hunchbacked  girl  must  have 
six  thousand  livres  a  year ;  he  would  take  a  woman  of  five- 
and-forty  with  an  income  of  eight  thousand,  or  an  English- 
woman with  a  thousand  crowns. 

Phellion  took  compassion  on  the  young  man.  He  was  so 
much  pleased  with  Vimeux's  penmanship  that  he  lectured 
him,  and  tried  to  persuade  him  to  turn  writing-master;  it 
was,  he  said,  a  respectable  profession  which  might  ameliorate 
his  existence  and  even  render  it  agreeable.  He  promised  him 
the  school  kept  by  the  Demoiselles  La  Grave.  But  Vimeux's 
belief  in  his  star  was  not  to  be  shaken — it  was  too  firmly  fixed 
in  his  head.  He  continued,  therefore,  to  exhibit  himself  like 
one  of  Chevet's  sturgeons ;  albeit  his  luxuriant  mustache  had 
been  displayed  in  vain  for  three  years.  Vimeux  lowered  his 
eyes  every  time  that  he  passed  Antoine;  he  owed  the  porter 
thirty  francs  for  his  breakfasts,  and  yet  toward  noon  he  always 
asked  him  to  bring  him  a  roll. 

Rabourdin  had  tried  several  times  to  put  a  little  sound 
sense  into  the  young  fellow's  foolish  head,  but  he  gave  up  at 
last.  Vimeux's  father  was  a  clerk  to  a  justice  of  the  peace  in 
the  department  of  the  Nord.  Adolphe  Vimeux  had  given  up 
dinners  at  Katcomb's  lately,  and  lived  entirely  on  bread.  He 
was  saving  up  to  buy  a  pair  of  spurs  and  a  riding-switch.  In 
the  office  they  jeered  at  his  matrimonial  calculations,  calling 
him  the  Villiaume  pigeon  ;  but  any  scoff  at  this  vacuous  Ama- 
dis  could  only  be  attributed  to  the  mocking  spirit  that  creates 
the  vaudeville,  for  Vimeux  was  a  friendly  creature,  and  no- 
body's enemy  but  his  own.  The  great  joke  in  both  offices 
was  to  bet  that  he  wore  corsets. 

Vimeux  began  his  career  under  Baudoyer,  and  intrigued  to 
be  transferred  to  Rabourdin,  because  Baudoyer  was  inexorable 
on  the  matter  of  "Englishmen,"  for  so  the  clerks  called 
duns.  The  "Englishmen's"  day  is  the  day  on  which  the 
public  are  admitted;    and  creditors,  being  sure  of  finding 


294  LES  EMPLOYES. 

their  debtors,  flock  thither  to  worry  them,  asking  when  they 
will  be  paid,  threatening  to  attach  their  salaries.  Baudoyer 
the  inexorable  compelled  his  clerks  to  face  it  out.  "It  was 
their  affair,"  he  said,  "not  to  get  into  debt;"  and  he  re- 
garded his  severity  as  a  thing  necessary  for  the  public  welfare. 
Rabourdin,  on  the  other  hand,  stood  between  his  clerks  and 
their  creditors;  duns  were  put  out  at  the  door.  "Govern- 
ment offices,"  he  said,  "were  not  meant  for  the  transaction 
of  private  business."  Loud  was  the  scoffing  when  Vimeux 
clanked  up  the  stairs  and  along  the  corridors  with  spurs  on  his 
boots.  Bixiou,  practical  joker  to  the  department,  drew  a  cari- 
cature of  Vimeux  mounted  on  a  pasteboard  hobby-horse,  and 
sent  the  drawing  circulating  through  Clcrgeot's  and  Billar- 
diere's  divisions.  A  subscription  list  was  attached.  M.  Bau- 
doyer's  name  was  put  down  for  a  hundredweight  of  hay  from 
the  stock  supplied  for  his  own  private  consumption,  and  all 
the  clerks  cut  gibes  at  their  neighbor's  expense.  Vimeux 
himself,  like  the  good-natured  fellow  that  he  was,  subscribed 
under  the  name  of  "  Miss  Fairfax." 

The  handsome  clerk  of  Vimeux's  stamp  has  his  post  for  a 
living  and  his  face  for  his  fortune.  He  is  a  faithful  supporter 
of  masked  balls  at  carnival-tide,  though  sometimes  even  there 
he  fails  in  his  quest.  A  good  many  of  his  kind  give  up  the 
search,  and  end  by  marrying  milliners  or  old  women  ;  some- 
times some  young  lady  is  charmed  with  his  fine  person,  and 
with  her  he  spins  out  a  clandestine  romance  that  ends  in  mar- 
riage, a  love  story  diversified  by  tedious  letters,  which,  how- 
ever, produce  their  effect.  Occasionally  one  here  and  there 
waxes  bolder.  He  sees  a  woman  drive  past  in  the  Charap- 
Elysees,  procures  her  address,  hurls  impassioned  letters  at 
her,  finds  a  bargain  which,  unfortunately,  encourages  ignoble 
speculation  of  this  kind. 

The  Bixiou  (pronounced  Bisiou)  mentioned  above  was  a 
caricaturist;  Dutocq  and  Rabourdin,  whom  he  dubbed  La 
vertueuse  Rabourdin,  were  alike  fair  game  to  him;  Baudoyer 


LES  EMPLOYES.  295 

he  called  la  Place- Baudoyer,  by  way  of  summing  up  his 
chief's  commonplace  character;  du  Bruel  was  christened 
Flonflon.  Bixiou  was  beyond  question  the  wittiest  and  clev- 
erest man  in  the  division,  or,  indeed,  in  the  department ;  but 
his  was  a  monkey's  cleverness,  desultory  and  aimless.  Bau- 
doyer and  Godard  protected  him  in  spite  of  his  malicious 
ways,  because  he  was  extremely  useful  to  them ;  he  did  their 
work  for  them  out  of  hand.  He  wanted  du  Bruel's  or  Godard's 
place,  but  he  stood  in  his  own  light.  Sometimes — this  was 
when  he  had  done  some  good  stroke  of  business,  such  as  the 
portraits  in  the  Fualdes  case  (which  he  drew  out  of  his  own 
head),  or  pictures  of  the  Castaing  trial — he  turned  the  service 
to  ridicule.  Sometimes  he  would  be  very  industrious  in  a 
sudden  fit  of  desire  to  get  on  ;  and  then  again  he  would  neg- 
lect the  work  for  a  vaudeville,  which  he  never  by  any  chance 
finished.  He  was,  moreover,  selfish,  close-fisted,  and  yet 
extravagant ;  or,  in  other  words,  he  lavished  money  only  upon 
himself;  he  was  fractious,  aggressive,  and  indiscreet,  making 
mischief  for  pure  love  of  mischief. 

Bixiou  was  specially  given  to  attacking  the  weak  ;  he  re- 
spected nothing  and  no  one ;  he  believed  neither  in  France, 
nor  God,  nor  Art,  in  neither  Greek  nor  Turk,  nor  Champ- 
d'Asile,  nor  in  the  Monarchy  ;  and  he  made  a  point  of  jeering 
at  everything  which  he  did  not  understand.  He  was  the  very 
first  to  put  a  priest's  black  cap  on  Charles  X.'s  head  on  five- 
franc  pieces.  He  took  off  Dr.  Gall  at  his  lectures  till  the 
most  closely  buttoned  diplomat  must  have  choked  with 
laughter.  It  was  a  standing  joke  with  this  formidable  wag 
to  heat  the  office  stoves  so  hot  that  if  any  one  imprudently 
ventured  out  of  the  sudatory  he  was  pretty  certain  to  catch 
cold  ;  while  Bixiou  enjoyed  the  further  satisfaction  of  wasting 
the  fuel  supplied  by  the  Government.  Bixiou  was  not  an  or- 
dinary man  in  his  hoaxes;  he  varied  them  with  so  much  in- 
genuity that  somebody  was  invariably  taken  in.  He  guessed 
every  one's  wishes;  this  was  the  secret  of  his  success  in  this 


296  L2£S  EldPLOY&S. 

line ;  he  knew  the  way  to  every  castle  in  Spain ;  and  a  man 
is  easy  to  hoax  through  his  day-dreams,  because  he  is  a  willing 
accomplice.  Bixiou  would  draw  you  out  for  hours  together. 
And  yet,  though  Bixiou  was  a  profound  observer,  though  he 
displayed  extraordinary  tact  for  purposes  of  quizzing,  he  could 
not  apply  his  aptitude  to  the  purpose  of  making  other  men 
useful  to  him,  nor  to  the  art  of  getting  on  in  life.  He  liked 
best  of  all  to  torment  La  Billardiere  junior,  his  pet  aversion 
and  nightmare ;  but  nevertheless  he  coaxed  and  flattered  the 
young  fellow  the  better  to  quiz  him.     He  used  to  send  him 

love  letters  signed  "  Comtesse  de  M "  or  "Marquise  tie 

B ,"  making  an  appointment  under  the  clock  in  the  green- 
room of  the  opera  at  Shrovetide,  and  then  after  making  a 
public  exhibition  of  the  young  man  he  would  let  loose  a  gri- 
sette  upon  him.  He  made  common  cause  with  Dutocq  (whom 
he  regarded  as  a  serious  hoaxer)  ;  he  made  it  a  labor  of  love 
to  support  him  in  his  detestation  of  Rabourdin  and  his  praises 
of  Baudoycr. 

Jean  Jacques  Bixiou  was  the  grandson  of  a  Paris  grocer. 
His  father  died  as  a  colonel  in  the  army,  leaving  the  boy  to 
the  care  of  his  grandmother,  who  had  lost  her  husband  and 
married  one  Descoings,  her  clerk.  Descoings  died  in  1822. 
When  Bixiou  left  school  and  looked  about  for  some  means  of 
earning  a  livelihood,  he  tried  art  for  a  while  ;  but  in  spite  of 
his  friendship  for  Joseph  Bridau,  a  friend  of  childhood,  he 
gave  up  painting  for  caricatures,  and  vignettes,  and  the  kind 
of  work  known  twenty  years  afterward  as  book  illustration. 
The  influence  of  the  Dues  de  Maufrigneuse  and  de  Rhetore 
(whose  acquaintance  he  made  through  opera-dancers)  procured 
him  his  place  in  1819.  He  was  on  the  best  of  terms  with  des 
Lupeaulx,  whom  he  met  in  society  as  an  equal;  he  talked 
familiarly  to  du  Bruel ;  he  was  a  living  proof  of  Rabourdin's 
observations  on  the  continual  process  of  destruction  at  work 
in  the  administrative  hierarchy  of  Paris,  when  a  man  acquired 
personal  importance  outside  the  office.     Short  but  well  made, 


LES  EMPLOYES.  297 

small  of  feature,  remarkable  for  a  vague  resemblance  to  Napo- 
leon ;  a  young  man  of  twenty-seven,  with  thin  lips,  a  flat,  per- 
pendicular chin,  fair  hair,  auburn  whiskers,  sparkling  eyes, 
and  a  caustic  voice — here  you  have  Bixiou.     All  senses  and 
intellect,  he  spoiled  his  career  by  an  unbridled  love  of  plea- 
sure, which  plunged  him  into  continual  dissipation.     He  was 
an  intrepid  man  of  pleasure ;    he  ran  about  after  grisettes ; 
smoked,  dined,  and  supped,  and  told  good  stories,  everywhere 
adapting    himself   to  his  company,  and    shining  behind    the 
scenes  at  a  grisettes'  ball  or  the  Allee  des  Veuves.     At  table 
or  as  one  of  a  pleasure  party  Bixiou  was  equally  astonishing  ; 
he  was  equally  alert  and  in  spirits  at  midnight  in  the  street,  or 
at  his  first  waking  in  the  morning;  but,  like  most  great  comic 
actors,    he   was    gloomy   and    depressed   when    by   himself. 
Launched    forth    into   a   world  of  actors,  actresses,  writers, 
artists,  and  a  certain  kind  of  woman  whose  riches  are  apt  to 
take  wings,  he  lived  well,  he  went  to  the  theatre  without  pay- 
ment, he  played  at  Frascati's,  and  often  won.     He  was,  in 
truth,  profoundly  an  artist,  but  only  by  flashes  ;  life  for  him 
was  a  sort  of  swing  on  which  he  swayed  to  and  fro  without 
troubling  himself  about    the  moment  when  the  cord  would 
break.     Among  people  accustomed  to  a  brilliant  display  of  in- 
tellect, Bixiou  was  in  great  request  for  the  sake  of  his  liveliness 
and  prodigality  of  ideas  ;   but  none  of  his  friends  liked  him. 
He  could  not  resist  the  temptation  of  an  epigram  ;  he  sacrificed 
his  neighbor  on  either  hand  at  dinner  before  the  first  course 
was  over.     In  spite  of  his  superficial  gayety,  a  certain  secret 
discontent  with  his  social  position  crept  into  his  conversation  ; 
he  aspired  to  something  better,  and  the  fatal  lurking  imp  in 
his  character  would  not   permit  him  to  assume   the   gravity 
which   makes  so  muc'.    impression    on    fools.     He   lived    in 
chambers  in  the  Rue  de  Ponthicu;  it  was  a  regular  bivouac  ; 
the  three  rooms  were  given  up  to  the  disorder  of  a  bachelor 
establishment.     Often  he  would  talk  of  leaving  France  to  try 
a  violent  assault  on   fortune  in  America.     No  fortune-teller 


298  LES  EMPLOYES. 

could  have  predicted  his  future,  for  all  his  talents  were  incom- 
plete ;  he  could  not  work  hard  and  steadily ;  he  was  always 
intoxicated  with  pleasure,  ahva3's  behaving  as  if  the  world  were 
to  come  to  an  end  on  the  morrow. 

As  to  dress,  his  claim  was  that  he  was  not  ridiculous  on 
that  score ;  and,  perhaps,  he  was  the  one  man  in  the  depart- 
ment of  whom  it  would  not  be  said  :  "  There  goes  a  Govern- 
ment clerk  !  "  He  wore  elegant  boots,  black  trousers  with 
straps  to  them,  a  fancy  vest,  a  cravat  (the  eternal  gift  of  the 
grisette),  a  hat  from  Bandoni's,  and  dark  kid  gloves.  His 
bearing  was  not  ungraceful,  being  both  easy  and  unaffected. 
So  it  came  to  pass  that  when  summoned  to  hear  a  reprimand 
from  des  Lupeaulx,  after  carrying  his  insolence  toward  the 
Baron  de  la  Billardiere  a  little  too  far,  he  was  content  to 
rejoin:  "You  would  take  me  on  again  for  the  sake  of  my 
clothes."     And  des  I.upeaulx  could  not  help  laughing. 

The  most  pleasing  hoax  ever  perpetrated  by  Bixiou  in  the 
offices  was  devised  for  Godard's  benefit.  To  him  Bixiou 
presented  a  Chinese  butterfly,  which  the  senior  clerk  put  in 
his  collection,  and  exhibits  to  this  day ;  he  has  not  yet  found 
out  that  it  is  a  piece  of  painted  paper.  Bixiou  had  the  patience 
to  elaborate  a  masterpiece  for  the  sake  of  playing  a  trick  upon 
the  chief  clerk's  assistant. 

The  devil  always  provides  a  Bixiou  with  a  victim.  Bau- 
doyer's  office  accordingly  contained  a  butt,  a  poor  copying 
clerk,  aged  two-and-twenty.  Auguste-Jean-Frangois  Minard, 
for  that  was  his  name,  was  in  receipt  of  a  salary  of  fifteen 
hundred  francs.  He  had  married  for  love.  His  wife  was  a 
doorkeeper's  daughter,  an  artificial  flower-maker,  who  worked 
at  home  for  Mile.  Godard.  Minard  had  seen  the  girl  in  the 
store  in  the  Rue  de  Richelieu.  Zelie  Lorain,  in  the  davs 
before  her  marriage,  had  many  dreams  of  changing  her  station 
in  life.  She  had  been  trained  at  the  Conservatoire  as  dancer, 
singer,  and  actress  by  turns  ;  and  often  she  had  thought  of 
doing  as  many  other  girls  did,  but  the  fear  that  things  might 


LES  EMPLOYES.  299 

turn  out  badly  for  her,  and  she  might  sink  to  unspeakable 
depths,  had  kept  Zelie  in  the  paths  of  virtue.  She  was  re- 
volving all  kinds  of  hazy  projects  in  her  mind  when  Minard 
came  forward  with  his  offer  of  marriage  and  gave  them  a 
definite  shape.  Z6lie  was  earning  five  hundred  francs  a  year; 
Minard  had  fifteen  hundred.  In  the  belief  that  two  persons 
can  live  on  two  thousand  francs,  they  were  married  without 
settlements  and  in  the  most  economical  fashion.  The  pair 
of  turtle-doves  found  a  nest  on  a  fourth  floor  near  the  Barriere 
de  Courcelles,  at  a  rent  of  a  hundred  crowns.  There  was  a 
very  neat  little  kitchen,  with  a  cheap  plaid  paper  at  fifteen 
sous  the  piece  upon  the  walls,  a  brick  floor  assiduously  bees- 
waxed and  polished,  walnut-wood  furniture,  and  white  India 
muslin  curtains  in  the  windows  ;  there  was  a  room  in  which 
Zelie  made  her  flowers  ;  a  parlor  beyond,  with  a  round  table 
in  the  middle,  a  looking-glass  on  the  wall,  a  clock  representing 
a  revolving  crystal  fountain,  dark  haircloth  chairs,  and  gilt 
candlesticks  in  gauze  covers  ;  and  a  blue-and-white  bedroom, 
with  a  mahogany  bedstead,  a  bureau,  a  bit  of  striped  carpet  at 
the  bedfoot,  half  a  dozen  easy-chairs,  four  small  chairs,  and  a 
little  cherry-wood  cot  in  the  corner  where  the  little  ones,  a 
boy  and  girl,  used  to  sleep.  Zelie  nursed  her  children  herself, 
did  the  cooking  and  the  work  of  the  house,  and  made  her 
flowers.  There  was  something  touching  in  their  happy,  hard- 
working, unpretending  comfort.  As  soon  as  Zelie  felt  that 
Minard  loved  her,  she  loved  him  with  all  her  heart.  I^ove 
draws  love;  it  is  the  "deep  calling  unto  the  deep"  of  the 
Bible. 

Minard,  poor  fellow,  used  to  leave  his  wife  asleep  in  bed  in 
the  morning  and  do  her  marketing  for  her.  He  took  the 
finished  flowers  to  the  store  on  his  way  to  the  oflice  of  a 
morning,  and  bought  the  materials  as  he  came  home  in  the 
afternoon.  Then,  as  he  waited  for  dinner,  he  cut  or  stamped 
out  the  petals,  made  the  stalks,  and  mixed  the  colors  for  her. 
The  little,  thin,  slight,  nervous  man,  with  the  curled  chestnut 


300  LES  EMPLOYES. 

hair,  clear  hazel  eyes,  and  dazziiigly  fair  but  freckled  com- 
plexion, possessed  a  quiet  and  unboasting  courage  below  the 
surface.  He  could  write  as  well  as  Vimeux.  At  the  ofifice  he 
kept  himself  to  himself,  did  his  work,  and  maintained  the 
reserve  of  a  thoughtful  man  whose  life  is  hard.  Bixiou,  the 
pitiless,  nicknamed  him  "the  white  rabbit,"  on  account  of 
liis  white  eyelashes  and  scanty  eyebrows.  Minard  was  a 
Rabourdin  on  a  lower  level.  He  was  burning  with  a  desire 
to  put  his  Zelie  in  a  good  position  ;  he  wanted  to  make  a  for- 
tune quickly,  and  to  this  end  he  was  trying  to  hit  upon  an 
idea,  a  discovery,  or  an  improvement  in  the  ocean  of  Parisian 
industries  and  cravings  for  new  luxury.  Minard's  seeming 
stupidity  was  the  result  of  mental  tension  ;  he  went  from  the 
Double  Pate  des  Sultanes  to  Cephalic  Oil ;  from  phosphorus 
boxes  to  portable  gas  ;  from  hinged  clogs  to  hydrostatic  lamps, 
making  the  entire  round  of  the  infinitesimally  small  details  of 
material  civilization.  He  bore  Bixiou's  jests  as  a  busy  man  bears 
with  the  buzzing  of  a  fly  ;  he  never  even  lost  his  temper.  And 
Bixiou,  quickwitted  though  he  was,  never  suspected  the  depth 
of  contempt  that  Minard  felt  for  him.  Minard  regarded  a 
quarrel  with  Bixiou  as  a  waste  of  time,  and  so  at  length  he  had 
tired  out  his  persecutor. 

Minard  was  very  plainly  dressed  at  the  office ;  he  wore 
trousers  of  duck  till  October,  shoes  and  gaiters,  a  mohair  vest, 
a  beaver-cloth  coat  in  winter  and  twill  in  summer,  and  a  straw 
or  silk  hat  according  to  the  season,  for  Zelie  was  his  pride. 
He  would  have  gone  without  food  to  buy  a  new  dress  for  her. 
He  breakfasted  at  home  with  his  wife,  and  ate  nothing  till  he 
returned.  Once  a  month  he  took  Zelie  to  the  theatre  with  a 
ticket  given  by  du  Bruel  or  Bixiou,  for  Bixiou  did  all  sorts  of 
tilings,  even  a  kindness  now  and  again.  On  these  occasions 
Zdlie's  mother  left  her  porter's  room  to  look  after  the  baby. 
Minard  had  succeeded  to  Vimeux's  place  in  Baudoyer's  office. 

Mme.  and  M.  Minard  paid  their  calls  in  person  on  New 
Year's  Day.     People  used  to  wonder  how  the  wife  of  a  poor 


LES  EMFLOYES.  301 

clerk  on  fifteen  hundred  francs  a  year  could  manage  to  keep 
her  husband  in  a  suit  of  black,  and  afford  to  drive  in  a  hack, 
and  to  wear  embroidered  lawn  dresses  and  silk  petticoats,  a 
Tuscan  straw  bonnet  with  flowers  in  it,  prunella  shoes,  mag- 
nificent fichus,  and  a  Chinese  parasol ;  and  yet  be  virtuous ; 
while  Mme.  Colleville  or  such  and  such  a  "lady"  could 
scarcely  make  both  ends  meet  on  two  thousand  four  hun- 
dred francs. 

Two  of  the  clerks  were  friends  to  a  ridiculous  degree,  for 
anything  is  matter  for  a  joke  in  a  Government  office.  One  of 
these  was  the  senior  draughting  clerk  in  Baudoyer's  office;  he 
had  been  chief  clerk's  assistant,  and  even  chief  clerk,  for  some 
considerable  time  during  the  Restoration.  Colleville,  for  that 
was  his  name,  had  in  Mme.  Colleville  a  wife  as  much  above 
the  ordinary  level  in  her  way  as  Mme.  Rabourdin  in  another. 
Colleville,  the  son  of  a  first  violin  at  the  opera,  had  been 
smitten  with  the  daughter  of  a  well-known  opera-dancer. 
Some  clever  and  charming  Parisiennes  can  make  their  hus- 
bands happy  without  losing  their  liberty  ;  Mme.  Colleville  was 
one  of  these.  She  made  CoUcville's  house  a  meeting-place 
for  orators  of  the  Chamber  and  the  best  artists  of  the  day. 
People  were  apt  to  forget  how  humble  a  place  Colleville  occu- 
pied in  his  own  house.  Flavie  was  a  little  too  prolific  ;  her 
conduct  offered  such  a  handle  to  gossip  that  Mme.  Rabourdin 
had  refused  all  her  invitations. 

Colleville's  friend,  one  Thuillier,  was  senior  draughting 
clerk  in  Rabourdin's  office;  and  while  he  occupied  precisely 
the  same  position,  his  career  in  the  service  had  been  cut  short 
for  the  same  reasons.  If  any  one  knew  Colleville,  he  knew 
Thuillier,  and  vice  versa.  It  had  so  fallen  out  that  they  both 
entered  the  office  at  the  same  lime,  and  their  friendship  arose 
out  of  this  coincidence.  Pretty  Mme.  Colleville  (so  it  was 
said  among  the  clerks)  had  not  repulsed  Thuillier's  assiduities. 
Thuillier's  wife  had  brought  him  no  children.  Thuillier, 
otherwise  "Beau  Thuillier,"  had   been   a  lady-killer  in   his 


302  LES  EMPLOYES. 

youth,  and  now  was  as  idle  as  Colleville  was  industrious. 
Colleville  not  only  played  the  first  clarionet  at  the  Opera- 
Comique — he  kept  tradesmen's  books  in  the  morning  before 
he  went  to  the  office,  and  worked  very  hard  to  bring  up  his 
family,  although  he  did  not  lack  influence.  Others  regarded 
him  as  a  very  shrewd  individual,  and  so  much  the  more  so 
because  he  hid  his  ambitions  under  a  semblance  of  indifference. 
To  all  appearance  he  was  satisfied  with  his  lot ;  he  liked  work; 
he  found  everybody,  even  to  the  chiefs  themselves,  inclined 
to  aid  so  brave  a  struggle  for  a  livelihood.  Only  recently, 
within  the  last  few  days  in  fact,  Mme.  Colleville  had  reformed 
her  ways,  and  seemed  to  be  tending  toward  religion  ;  where- 
upon a  rumor  went  abroad  through  the  offices  that  the  lady 
meant  to  betake  herself  to  the  Congregation  in  search  of  some 
more  certain  support  than  the  famous  orator  Francois  Keller, 
for  his  influence  hitherto  had  failed  to  procure  a  good  place 
for  Colleville.  Flavie  had  previously  addressed  herself  (it 
was  one  of  the  mistakes  of  her  life)  to  des  Lupeaulx. 

Colleville  had  a  mania  for  reading  the  fortunes  of  famous 
men  in  anagrams  made  of  their  names.  He  would  spend 
whole  months  in  arranging  and  rearranging  the  letters  to  dis- 
cover some  significance  in  them.  In  Revolution  francaise,  he 
discovered  Un  Corse  la  finira  ; — Vierge  de  son  martin  Marie 
de  Vigneros,  Cardinal  de  Richelieu's  niece; — Henrici  met 
casta  dea  in  Catharina  de'  Medicis; — Eh!  c' est  large  nez  in 
Charles  Genest,  the  abbe  whose  big  nose  amused  the  Due  de 
Bourgogne  so  much  at  the  Court  of  Louis  XIV.  All  anagrams 
known  to  history  had  set  Colleville  wondering.  He  raised 
the  play  on  words  into  a  science ;  a  man's  fate  (according  to 
him)  was  written  in  a  phrase  composed  of  the  letters  of  his 
name,  style,  and  titles.  Ever  since  Charles  X.  came  to  the 
throne  he  had  been  busy  with  that  monarch's  anagram. 
Thuillier  maintained  that  an  anagram  was  a  pun  in  letters; 
but  Thuillier  was  rather  given  to  puns.  Colleville,  a  man  of 
generous  nature,  was  bound  by  a  well-nigh  indissoluble  friend- 


LES  EMPLOYES.  303 

ship  to  Thuillier,  a  pattern  of  an  egoist !  It  was  an  insoluble 
problem,  though  many  of  the  clerks  explained  it  by  the  obser- 
vation that  "  Thuillier  is  well  to  do,  and  CoUeville's  family  is 
a  heavy  burden  !  " 

And,  truth  to  say,  Thuillier  was  supposed  to  supplement  his 
salary  by  lending  money  out  at  interest.  Men  in  business 
often  sent  to  ask  to  speak  with  him,  and  Thuillier  would  go 
down  for  a  few  minutes'  talk  with  them  in  the  courtyard ;  but 
these  interviews  were  undertaken  on  account  of  his  sister, 
Mile.  Thuillier.  The  friendship  thus  consolidated  by  time 
was  based  upon  events  and  attachments  that  came  about  natu- 
rally enough  ;  but  the  story  has  been  given  elsewhere,*  and 
critics  might  complain  of  the  tedious  length  of  it  if  it  were 
repeated.  Still,  it  is  perhaps  worth  while  to  point  out  that 
while  a  great  deal  was  known  in  the  offices  as  to  Mme.  CoUe- 
ville,  the  clerks  scarcely  knew  that  there  was  a  Mme.  Thuillier. 
Colleville,  the  active  man  with  a  burdensome  family  of  chil- 
dren, was  fat,  flourishing,  and  jolly ;  while  Thuillier,  the 
"  buck  of  the  Empire,"  with  his  idle  ways  and  no  apparent 
cares,  was  slender  in  figure,  haggard,  and  almost  melancholy 
to  behold. 

"  We  do  not  know  whether  our  friendships  spring  from  our 
unlikeness  or  likeness  to  each  other,"  Rabourdin  would  say, 
in  allusion  to  the  pair. 

Chazelle  and  Paulmier,  in  direct  contrast  to  the  Siamese 
twins,  were  always  at  war  with  each  other.  One  of  them 
smoked,  the  other  took  snuff,  and  the  pair  quarreled  inces- 
santly as  to  the  best  way  of  using  tobacco.  One  failing  com- 
mon to  both  made  them  equally  tiresome  to  their  fellow-clerks 
— they  were  perpetually  squabbling  over  the  cost  of  com- 
modities, the  price  of  green  peas  or  mackerel,  the  amounts 
paid  by  their  colleagues  for  hats,  boots,  coats,  umbrellas,  ties, 
and  gloves.  Each  bragged  of  his  new  discoveries,  and 
always  kept  them  to  himself.  Chazelle  collected  booksellers' 
*  In  "  Les  Petits  Bourgeois.'' 


304  LES  EMFLOYAS. 

prospectuses  and  pictorial  placards  and  designs ;  but  he  never 
subscribed  to  anything.  Paulmier,  Chazelle's  fellow-chatter- 
box, went  once  to  the  great  Dauriat  to  congratulate  him  on 
bringing  out  books  printed  on  hot-pressed  paper  with  printed 
covers,  and  bade  him  persevere  in  the  path  of  improvements 
— and  Paulmier  had  not  a  book  in  his  possession  !  Chazelle, 
being  henpecked  at  home,  tried  to  give  himself  independent 
airs  abroad,  and  supplied  Paulmier  with  endless  gibes,  while 
Paulmier,  a  bachelor,  fasted  as  frequently  as  Vimeux  himself, 
and  his  threadbare  clothes  and  thinly  disguised  poverty  fur- 
nished Chazelle  with  an  inexhaustible  text.  Chazelle  and  Paul- 
mier were  both  visibly  increasing  in  waist  girth ;  Chazelle's 
small,  rotund,  pointed  stomach  had  the  impudence,  according 
to  Bixiou,  to  be  always  first ;  Paulmier's  fluctuated  from  right 
to  left ;  Bixiou  had  them  measured  once  or  so  in  a  quarter. 
Both  were  between  thirty  and  forty,  and  both  were  sufficiently 
vapid ;  they  did  nothing  after  hours.  They  were  specimens 
of  your  thoroughbred  Government  clerk — their  brains  had 
been  addled  with  scribbling  and  long  continuance  in  the  ser- 
vice. Chazelle  used  to  doze  over  his  work,  while  the  pen 
which  he  still  held  in  his  hand  marked  his  breathings  with 
little  dots  on  the  paper.  Then  Paulmier  would  say  that 
Chazelle's  wife  gave  him  no  rest  at  night.  And  Chazelle 
would  retort  that  Paulmier  had  taken  drugs  for  four  months 
out  of  the  twelve,  and  prophesy  that  a  grisette  would  be  the 
death  of  him.  Whereupon  Paulmier  would  demonstrate  that 
Chazelle  was  in  the  habit  of  marking  the  almanac  when  Mme. 
Chazelle  showed  herself  complaisant.  By  dint  of  washing 
their  dirty  linen  in  public,  and  flinging  particulars  of  their 
domestic  life  at  one  another,  the  pair  had  won  a  fairly  merited 
and  general  contempt.  "  Do  you  take  me  for  a  Chazelle?" 
was  a  remark  that  put  an  end  to  a  wearisome  discussion. 

M.  Poiret  junior  was  so  called  to  distinguish  him  from  an 
elder  brother  who  had  left  the  service.  Poiret  senior  had 
retired    to  th.e    Maison    Vauquer,   at    which    boarding-house 


LES  EMPLOYES.  305 

Poiret  junior  occasionally  dined,  meaning  likewise  to  retire 
thither  some  day  for  good.  Poiret  junior  had  been  thirty 
years  in  the  department.  Every  action  in  the  poor  creature's 
life  was  part  of  a  routine;  Nature  herself  is  more  variable 
in  her  revolutions.  He  always  put  his  things  in  the  same 
place,  laid  his  pen  on  the  same  mark  in  the  grain  of  the  wood, 
sat  down  in  his  place  at  the  same  hour,  and  went  to  warm 
himself  at  the  stove  at  the  same  minute  j  for  his  one  vanity 
consisted  in  wearing  an  infallible  watch,  though  he  always  set 
it  daily  by  the  clock  of  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  which  he  passed 
on  his  way  from  the  Rue  du  Martroi. 

Between  six  and  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning  Poiret  made 
up  the  books  of  a  large  dry  goods  store  in  the  Rue  Saint- 
Antoine;  from  six  to  eight  in  the  evening  he  again  acted  as 
book-keeper  to  the  firm  of  Camusot  in  the  Rue  des  Bour- 
donnais.  In  this  way  he  made  an  income  of  a  thousand 
crowns  a  year,  including  his  salary.  By  this  time  he  was 
within  a  few  months  of  his  retirement  upon  a  pension,  and 
therefore  treated  the  office  intrigues  with  much  indifference. 
Retirement  had  already  dealt  Poiret  senior  his  death-blow ; 
and  probably  when  Poiret  junior  should  no  longer  be  obliged 
to  walk  daily  from  the  Rue  du  Martroi  to  the  office,  to  sit  on 
his  chair  at  a  table  and  copy  out  documents  daily,  he  too 
would  age  very  quickly.  Poiret  junior  collected  back  numbers 
of  the  "  Moniteur  "  and  of  the  newspaper  to  which  the  clerks 
subscribed.  He  achieved  this  with  a  collector's  enthusiasm. 
If  a  number  was  mislaid,  or  if  one  of  the  clerks  took  away  a 
copy  and  forgot  to  bring  it  back  again,  Poiret  junior  went 
forthwith  to  the  newspaper  office  to  ask  for  another  copy,  and 
returned  delighted  with  the  cashier's  politeness.  He  always 
came  in  contact  with  a  charming  young  fellow;  journalists, 
according  to  him,  were  pleasant  and  little  known  people. 
Poiret  junior  was  a  man  of  average  height,  with  dull  eyes,  a 
feeble,  colorless  expression,  a  tanned  skin  puckered  into  gray 
wrinkles  with  small  bluish  spots  scattered  over  them,  a  snub 
20 


306  LES  EMPLOYES. 

nose,  and  a  sunken  mouth,  in  which  one  or  two  bad  teeth  still 
lingered  on.  Thuillier  used  to  say  that  it  was  useless  for 
Poiret  to  look  in  the  mirror,  because  he  had  lost  his  eye- 
teeth.* 

His  long,  thin  arms  terminated  in  big  hands  without  any 
pretension  to  whiteness ;  his  gray  hair,  flattened  down  on  his 
head  by  the  pressure  of  his  hat,  gave  him  something  of  a 
clerical  appearance ;  a  resemblance  the  less  welcome  to  him, 
because  though  he  was  not  able  to  give  an  account  of  his  re- 
ligious opinions,  he  hated  priests  and  ecclesiastics  of  every 
sort  and  description.  This  antipathy,  however,  did  not  pre- 
vent him  from  feeling  an  extreme  attachment  for  the  Govern- 
ment, whatever  it  might  happen  to  be.  Even  in  the  very 
coldest  weather,  Poiret  never  buttoned  his  old-fashioned  great- 
coat or  wore  any  but  laced  shoes  or  black  trousers.  He  had 
gone  to  the  same  stores  for  thirty  years.  When  his  tailor 
died,  he  asked  for  leave  to  go  to  the  funeral,  shook  hands  at 
the  graveside  with  the  man's  son,  and  assured  him  of  his 
custom.  Poiret  was  on  friendly  terms  with  all  his  tradesmen  ; 
he  took  an  interest  in  their  affairs,  chatted  with  them,  listened 
to  the  tale  of  their  grievances,  and  paid  promptly.  If  he  had 
occasion  to  write  to  make  a  change  in  an  order,  he  observed 
the  utmost  ceremony,  dating  the  letter,  and  beginning  with 
"  Monsieur"  on  a  separate  line;  then  he  took  a  rough  copy, 
and  kept  it  in  a  pasteboard  case,  labeled  "  My  Corre- 
spondence." 

No  life  could  be  more  methodical.  Poiret  kept  every  re- 
ceipted bill,  however  small  the  amount ;  and  all  his  private 
account  books,  year  by  year,  since  he  came  into  the  office, 
were  put  away  in  paper  covers.  He  dined  for  a  fixed  sum  per 
month  at  the  same  eating-house  (the  sign  of  the  Sucking  Calf, 
in  the  Place  du  Chatelet),  and  at  the  same  table  (the  waiters 

*  Parce  quHl  ne  se  voyait  pas  dedans  {de  dents).  Here,  as  in  mmiy 
other  instances,  it  is  only  possil)le  to  suggest  in  the  English  version  that 
a  pun  has  been  made  in  the  French. — Tr. 


LES  EMPLOYES.  307 

used  to  keep  his  place  for  him) ;  and  as  he  never  gave  The 
Golden  Cocoon,  the  famous  silk-mercer's  establishment,  so 
much  as  five  minutes  more  than  the  due  time,  he  always 
reached  the  Cafe  David,  the  most  famous  cafe  in  the  Quarter, 
at  half-past  eight,  and  stayed  there  till  eleven  o'clock.  He 
had  frequented  that  cafe  likewise  for  thirty  years,  and  punctu- 
ally took  his  bavaroise  at  half-past  ten  ;  listening  to  political 
discussions  with  his  arms  crossed  on  his  walking-stick,  and  his 
chin  on  his  right  hand,  but  he  never  took  part  in  them.  The 
lady  at  the  desk  was  the  one  woman  with  whom  he  liked  to 
converse ;  to  her  ears  he  confided  all  the  little  events  of  his 
daily  existence,  for  he  sat  at  a  table  close  beside  her.  Some- 
times he  would  play  at  dominoes,  the  one  game  that  he  had 
managed  to  learn ;  but  if  his  partners  failed  to  appear,  Poiret 
was  occasionally  seen  to  doze,  with  his  back  against  the 
panels,  while  the  newspaper  frame  in  his  hand  sank  down  on 
the  slab  of  marble  before  him. 

Pciret  took  an  interest  in  all  that  went  on  in  Paris.  He 
spent  Sunday  in  looking  round  at  buildings  in  course  of  con- 
struction ;  he  would  talk  to  the  veteran  who  sees  that  no  one 
goes  inside  the  hoardings,  and  fret  over  the  delays,  the  lack 
of  money  or  of  building  materials,  and  other  obstacles  in  the 
way  of  the  architect.  He  was  heard  to  say:  "I  have  seen 
the  Louvre  rise  from  its  ruins ;  I  saw  the  first  beginnings  of 
the  Place  du  Chatelet,  the  Quai  aux  Fleurs,  and  the  Markets." 
He  and  his  brother  were  born  at  Troyes ;  their  father,  a  clerk 
of  a  farmer  of  taxes,  had  sent  them  both  to  Paris  to  learn  their 
business  in  a  Government  office.  Their  mother  brought  a 
notorious  life  to  a  disastrous  close ;  for  the  brothers  learned 
to  their  sorrow  that  she  died  in  the  hospital  at  Troyes,  in 
spite  of  frequent  remittances.  And  not  merely  did  they  vow 
tlien  and  there  never  to  marry,  but  they  held  children  in  ab- 
horrence :  they  could  not  feel  at  ease  with  them  ;  they  feared 
them  much  as  others  might  fear  lunatics,  and  scrutinized  them 
with  haggard  eyes.     Drudgery  had  crushed  all  the  life  out  of 


308  LES  EMPLOYES. 

them  both  in  Robert  Lindet's  time.  The  Government  had 
not  treated  them  justly,  but  they  thought  themselves  lucky  to 
keep  their  heads  on  their  shoulders,  and  only  grumbled  be- 
tween themselves  at  the  ingratitude  of  the  administration — for 
they  had  "  organized  "  the  "  Maximum  !  "  When  the  before- 
mentioned  trick  was  played  upon  Phellion,  and  his  famous 
sentence  was  taken  to  Rabourdin  for  correction,  Poiret  took 
the  draughting  clerk  aside  into  the  rear  corridor  to  say: 
"You  may  be  sure,  monsieur,  that  I  opposed  it  with  all  my 
might." 

Poiret  had  never  been  outside  of  Paris  since  he  came  into 
the  city.  He  began  from  the  first  to  keep  a  diary,  in  which 
he  set  out  the  principal  events  of  the  day.  Du  Bruel  told  him 
that  Byron  had  done  the  same  ;  the  comparison  overwhelmed 
Poiret  with  joy,  and  induced  him  to  buy  a  copy  of  Chas- 
topalli's  translation  of  Byron's  works,  of  which  he  understood 
not  a  word.  At  the  office  he  was  often  seen  in  a  melancholy 
attitude  ;  he  looked  as  if  he  were  meditating  deeply,  but  his 
mind  was  a  blank.  He  did  not  know  a  single  one  of  his 
fellow-lodgers  ;  he  went  about  with  the  key  of  his  room  in  his 
pockets.  On  New  Year's  Day  he  left  a  card  himself  on  every 
clerk  in  the  division,  and  paid  no  visits. 

Once,  it  was  in  the  dog-days,  Bixiou  took  it  into  his  head 
to  grease  the  inside  of  Poiret's  hat  with  lard.  Poiret  junior 
(he  was  then  fifty-two  years  of  age)  had  worn  the  hat  for  nine 
whole  years  ;  Bixiou  had  never  seen  him  in  any  other.  Bix- 
iou had  dreamed  of  the  hat  of  nights  ;  it  was  before  his  eyes 
while  he  ate  ;  and  in  the  interests  of  his  digestion,  he  made 
up  his  mind  to  rid  the  office  of  the  unclean  thing.  Poiret 
junior  went  out  toward  four  o'clock.  He  went  his  way  through 
the  streets  of  Paris,  in  a  tropical  heat,  for  the  sun's  rays  were 
reflected  back  again  from  the  walls  and  the  pavement.  Sud- 
denly he  felt  that  his  head  was  streaming  with  perspiration  ; 
and  he  seldom  perspired.  Deeming  that  he  was  ill,  or  on  the 
verge  of  an  illness,  he  went  home  instead  of  repairing  to  the 


LES  EMPLOYES.  309 

Sucking  Calf,  took  out   his  diary,   and  made  the  following 
entry : 

"This  day,  July  3d,  1823,  surprised  by  an  unaccountable 
perspiration,  possibly  a  symptom  of  the  sweating  sickness,  a 
malady  peculiar  to  Champagne.  Incline  to  consult  Dr.  Hau- 
dry.     First  felt  the  attack  by  the  Quai  d'Ecole." 

Suddenly,  as  he  wrote  bareheaded,  it  struck  him  that  the 
supposed  sweat  arose  from  some  external  cause.  He  wiped 
his  countenance  and  examined  his  hat ;  but  he  did  not  venture 
to  undo  the  lining,  and  could  make  nothing  of  it.  Subse- 
quently he  made  another  entry  in  the  diary  : 

"Took  the  hat  to  the  Sieur  Tournan,  hatter  in  the  Rue 
Saint- Martin  ;  seeing  that  I  suspect  that  something  else  caused 
the  sweat,  which  in  that  case  would  not  be  a  sweat  at  all,  but 
simply  the  effect  of  an  addition  of  some  kind,  more  or  less 
recently  made." 

M.  Tournan  immediately  detected  the  presence  ol  a  fatty 
substance  obtained  by  distillation  from  a  hog  or  sow,  and 
pointed  it  out  to  his  customer,  Poiret  departed  in  a  hat  lent 
by  M.  Tournan  till  the  new  one  should  be  ready  for  him ;  but 
before  he  went  to  bed  he  added  another  sentence  to  his  diary: 

"  It  has  been  ascertained  that  my  hat  contained  lard,  other- 
wise hos's  fat." 


'o 


The  inexplicable  fact  occupied  Poiret's  mind  for  a  fortnight ; 
he  never  could  understand  how  the  phenomenon  had  been 
brought  about.  There  was  talk  at  the  office  of  showers  of  frogs 
and  other  canicular  portents  ;  a  portrait  of  Napoleon  had  been 
found  in  an  elm-tree  root ;  all  kinds  of  grotesque  freaks  of  nat- 
ural history  cropped  up.     Vimeux  told  him  one  day  that  he, 


310  LES  EMPLOYES. 

Vimeux,  had  had  his  face  dyed  black  by  his  hat,  and  added 
that  hatters  sold  terrible  trash.  Poiret  went  several  times  after 
that  to  Sieur  Tournan's  to  reassure  his  mind  as  to  the  pro- 
cesses of  manufacture. 

There  was  yet  another  clerk  in  Rabourdin's  office.  This 
personage  avowedly  had  the  courage  of  his  opinions,  professed 
the  politics  of  the  Left  Centre,  and  worked  himself  into  indig- 
nation over  the  unlucky  white  slaves  in  Baudoyer's  office,  and 
against  that  gentleman's  tyranny.  Fleury  openly  took  in  an 
Opposition  sheet,  wore  a  wide-brimmed  gray  felt  hat,  blue 
trousers  with  red  stripes,  a  blue  vest  adorned  with  gilt  buttons, 
and  a  double-breasted  overcoat  that  made  him  look  like  a 
quartermaster  in  the  gendarmes.  His  principles  remained 
unshaken,  and  the  administration  nevertheless  continued  to 
employ  him.  Yet  he  prophesied  evil  of  the  Government  if  it 
persisted  in  mixing  politics  and  religion.  He  made  no  secret 
of  his  predilection  for  Napoleon,  especially  since  the  great 
man's  death  made  a  dead  letter  of  the  law  against  all  partisans 
of  the  "usurper."  Fleury,  ex-captain  of  a  regiment  of  the 
line  under  the  Emperor,  a  tall,  fine,  dark-haired  fellow,  was 
a  money-taker  at  the  Cirque-Olympique.  Bixiou  had  never 
indulged  in  a  caricature  of  him  ;  for  the  rough  trooper  was  not 
only  a  very  good  shot  and  a  first-rate  swordsman,  but  he  ap- 
peared capable  of  going  to  brutal  extremities  upon  occasion. 
Fleury  was  a  zealous  subscriber  to  "  Victoires  et  Conquetes;  " 
but  he  declined  to  pay,  and  kept  the  issues  as  they  appeared, 
basing  his  refusal  upon  the  fact  that  the  number  stated  in  the 
prospectus  had  been  exceeded. 

He  worshiped  M.  Rabourdin,  for  M.  Rabourdin  had  inter- 
fered to  save  him  from  dismissal.  A  remark  once  escaped  the 
ex-warrior,  to  the  effect  that  if  anything  should  come  to  M. 
Rabourdin  through  anybody  else,  he,  Fleury,  would  kill  that 
some  one  else  ;  and  Dutocq  ever  since  went  in  such  fear  of 
Fleury,  that  he  fawned  upon  him. 

Fleury  was  overburdened  with  debts.     He  played  his  cred- 


LES  EMPLOYES.  311 

itors  all  kinds  of  tricks.  Being  expert  in  the  law,  he  never 
by  any  chance  put  his  name  to  a  bill ;  and  as  he  himself  had 
attached  his  salary  in  the  names  of  fictitious  creditors,  he  drew 
pretty  nearly  the  whole  of  it.  He  had  formed  a  very  intimate 
connection  with  a  super  at  the  Porte  Saint-Martin,  and  his 
furniture  was  removed  to  her  house.  So  he  played  ecarte 
joyously,  and  charmed  social  gatherings  with  his  talents ;  he 
could  drink  off  a  glass  of  champagne  at  a  draught  without 
moistening  his  lips,  and  he  knew  all  Beranger's  songs  by  heart. 
His  voice  was  still  fine  and  sonorous  ;  he  allowed  it  to  be  seen 
that  he  was  proud  of  it.  His  three  great  men  were  Napoleon, 
Bolivar,  and  Beranger.  Foy,  Lafitte,  and  Casimir  Delavigne 
only  enjoyed  his  esteem.  Fleury,  as  you  guess,  was  a  man  of 
the  South  ;  he  was  pretty  sure  to  end  as  the  responsible  editor 
of  some  Liberal  paper. 

Desroys  was  the  mysterious  man  of  the  division.  He  rubbed 
shoulders  with  no  one,  talked  little,  and  hid  his  life  so  success- 
fully that  no  one  knew  where  he  lived,  nor  how  he  lived,  nor 
whom  his  protectors  were.  Seeking  a  reason  for  this  silence, 
some  held  that  Desroys  was  one  of  the  Carbonari,  and  some 
that  he  was  an  Orleanist ;  some  said  that  he  was  a  spy,  others 
that  he  was  a  deep  individual.  But  Desroys  was  simply  the 
son  of  a  member  of  the  Convention  who  had  not  voted  for 
the  King's  death.  Reserved  and  cold  by  temperament,  he 
had  formed  his  own  conclusions  of  the  world,  and  looked  to 
no  one  but  himself.  As  a  Republican  in  secret,  an  admirer 
of  Paul-Louis  Courier,  and  a  friend  of  Michel  Chrestien's,  he 
was  waiting  till  time  and  the  commonsense  of  the  majority 
should  bring  about  the  triumph  of  his  political  opinions  in 
Europe.  Wherefore  his  dreams  were  of  Young  Germany  and 
Young  Italy.  His  heart  swelled  high  with  that  unintelligent 
collective  affection  for  the  species,  which  must  be  called 
*' humanitarianism,"  eldest  child  of  a  defunct  philosophy,  an 
affection  which  is  to  the  divine  charity  of  the  Catholic  re- 
ligion  as  system   is  to  art,  as   reasoning  is  to  effort.     This 


312  LES  EMPLOYES. 

conscientious  political  puritan,  this  apostle  of  an  impossible 
Equality,  regretted  that  penury  forced  him  into  the  service  of 
the  Government ;  he  was  trying  to  get  employment  in  some 
coach  office.  L»an  and  lank,  prosy  and  serious,  as  a  man 
may  be  expected  to  be  if  he  feels  that  he  may  be  called  upon 
some  day  to  give  his  head  for  the  great  object  of  his  life, 
Desroys  lived  on  a  page  of  Volney,  studied  St.  Just,  and  was 
engaged  upon  a  rehabilitation  of  Robespierre,  considered  as  a 
continuer  of  the  work  of  Jesus  Christ. 

One  more  among  these  personages  deserves  a  stroke  or  two 
of  the  pencil.  This  is  little  La  Billardiere.  For  his  mis- 
fortune he  had  lost  his  mother.  He  had  interest  with  the 
minister;  he  was  exempt  from  the  rough-and-ready  treatment 
that  he  should  have  received  from  "  la  Place-Baudoyer ;  "  and 
all  the  ministerial  salons  were  open  to  him.  Everybody  de- 
tested the  youth  for  his  insolence  and  conceit.  Heads  of  de- 
partments were  civil  to  him,  but  the  clerks  had  put  him 
beyond  the  pale  of  good-fellowship  with  a  grotesque  polite- 
ness invented  for  his  benefit.  Little  La  Billardiere  was  a  tall, 
slim,  weazened  youth  of  two-and-twenty,  with  the  manners  of 
an  Englishman  ;  his  dandy's  airs  were  an  affront  to  the  office  ; 
he  came  to  it  scented  and  curled  with  impeccable  collars  and 
primrose-colored  gloves,  and  a  constantly  renewed  hat  lining ; 
he  carried  an  eyeglass ;  he  breakfasted  at  the  Palais-Royal. 
A  veneer  of  manner  which  did  not  seem  altogether  to  belong 
to  him  covered  his  natural  stupidity.  Benjamin  de  la  Bil- 
lardiere had  an  excellent  opinion  of  himself;  he  had  every 
aristocratic  defect,  and  no  corresponding  graces.  He  felt 
quite  sure  of  being  "somebody,"  and  had  thoughts  of  writing 
a  book ;  he  would  gain  the  cross  as  an  author  and  set  it  down 
to  his  administrative  talents.  So  he  cajoled  Bixiou  with  a 
view  to  exploiting  him,  but  as  yet  he  had  not  ventured  to 
broach  the  subject.  This  noble  heart  was  waiting  impatiently 
for  the  death  of  the  father  who  had  but  lately  been  made  a 
baron.     "  The  Chevalier  de  la  Billardiere  "  (so  his  name  ap- 


LES  EMPLOYES.  313 

peared  on  his  cards)  had  his  armorial  bearings  framed  and 
hung  up  at  the  office,  to  wit,  sable,  two  swords  saltire-wise, 
on  a  chief  azure,  three  stars,  and  the  motto :  a  toujours 
FiDELE.  He  had  a  craze  for  talking  heraldry.  Once  he 
asked  the  young  Vicomte  de  Portendu6re  why  his  arms  were 
blazoned  thus,  and  drew  down  upon  himself  the  neat  reply, 
"It  was  none  of  my  doing."  Little  La  Billardiere  talked 
much  of  his  devotion  to  the  Monarchy,  and  of  the  Dauph- 
iness'  graciousness  to  him.  He  was  on  very  good  terms  with 
des  Lupeaulx,  often  breakfasted  with  him,  and  believed  that 
des  Lupeaulx  was  his  friend.  Bixiou,  posing  as  his  Mentor, 
had  hopes  of  ridding  the  division,  and  France  likewise,  of  the 
young  coxcomb  by  plunging  him  into  dissipation  ;  and  he 
made  no  secret  of  his  intentions. 

Such  were  the  principal  figures  in  La  Billardiere's  division. 
Some  others  there  were  beside  which  more  or  less  approached 
these  types  in  habits  of  life  or  appearance.  Baudoyer's  office 
boasted  various  examples  of  the  genus  clerk  in  diverse,  bald- 
fronted,  chilly  mortals,  with  frames  well  wadded  round  with 
flannel.  These  individuals  carried  thorn-sticks,  wore  thread- 
bare clothes,  and  were  never  seen  without  an  umbrella.  They 
perched,  as  a  rule,  on  sixth  floors,  and  cultivated  flowers  at 
that  height.  Clerks  of  this  type  rank  half-way  between  the 
piosperous  janitor  and  the  needy  artisan;  tliey  are  too  far 
from  the  administrative  centre  to  hope  for  any  promotion 
whatsoever ;  they  are  pawns  upon  the  bureaucratic  chessboard. 
When  their  turn  comes  to  go  on  guard,  they  rejoice  to  get  a 
day  away  from  the  office.  There  is  nothing  that  they  will 
not  do  for  extras.  How  they  exist  at  all  their  very  employers 
would  be  puzzled  to  say;  their  lives  are  an  indictment  against 
the  State  that  assuredly  causes  the  misery  by  accepting  such  a 
condition  of  things. 

At  sight  of  their  strange  faces  it  is  hard  to  decide  whether 
these  quill-bearing  mammals  become  cretinous  at  their  task, 
or  whether,  on  the  other  hand,  they  would  never  have  under- 

L 


314  LES  EMPLOYES. 

taken  it  if  they  had  not  been,  to  some  extent,  cretins  from 
birth.  Perhaps  Nature  and  the  Government  may  divide  the 
responsibility  between  them.  "Villagers,"  according  to  an 
unknown  writer,  "are  submitted  to  the  influences  of  atmos- 
pheric conditions  and  surrounding  circumstances.  They  do 
not  seek  to  explain  the  fact  to  themselves.  They  are  in  a 
manner  identified  with  their  natural  surroundings.  Slowly 
and  imperceptibly  the  ideas  and  ways  of  feeling  awakened  by 
those  surroundings  will  permeate  their  being  and  come  to  the 
surface  of  their  lives,  in  their  personal  appearance  and  in  their 
actions,  with  variations  for  each  individual  organization  and 
temperament.  And  thus,  if  any  student  feels  attracted  to  the 
little  known  and  fruitful  field  of  physiological  inquiry,  which 
includes  the  effects  produced  by  external  natural  agents  upon 
human  character,  for  him  the  villager  becomes  a  most  inter- 
esting and  trustworthy  book."  But  for  the  employe,  Nature 
is  replaced  by  the  office  ;  his  horizon  is  bounded  upon  all  sides 
by  green  pasteboard  cases.  For  him  atmospheric  influences 
mean  the  air  of  the  corridors,  the  stuffy  atmosphere  of  unventi- 
lated  rooms  where  men  are  crowded  together;  and  the  odor  of 
paper  and  quills.  A  floor  of  bare  bricks  or  parquetry,  be- 
strewn with  strange  litter,  and  besprinkled  from  the  messen- 
ger's watering-can,  is  the  scene  of  his  labors;  his  sky  is  the 
ceiling,  to  which  his  yawns  are  addressed  ;  his  element  is  dust. 
The  above  remarks  on  the  villager  might  have  been  meant  for 
the  clerk  ;  he  too  is  "  identified  "  with  his  surroundings.  The 
sun  scarcely  shines  into  the  horrid  dens  known  as  public 
offices;  the  thinking  powers  of  their  occupants  are  strictly 
confined  to  a  monotonous  round.  Their  prototype,  the  mill- 
horse,  yawns  hideously  over  such  work,  and  cannot  stand  it 
for  long.  And  since  several  learned  doctors  see  reason  to 
dread  the  effects  of  such  half-barbarous,  half-civilized  sur- 
roundings  upon  the  mental  constitution  of  human  beings  pent 
up  among  them,  Rabourdin  surely  was  profoundly  right  wlien 
he  proposed  to  cut  down  the  number  of  the  staff,  and  asked 


LES  EMPLOYES.  315 

for  heavy  salaries  and   hard  work   for  them.     Men  are  not 
bored  when  they  have  great  things  to  do. 

As  government  offices  are  at  present  constituted,  four  hours 
out  of  the  nine  which  the  clerks  are  supposed  to  give  to  the 
State  are  wasted,  as  will  presently  be  seen,  over  talk,  anec- 
dotes, and  squabbles,  and,  more  than  all,  over  office  intrigues. 
You  do  not  know,  unless  you  frequent  government  offices, 
how  much  the  clerk's  little  world  resembles  the  world  of 
school ;  the  similarity  strikes  you  wherever  men  live  together ; 
and  in  the  army  or  the  law-courts  you  find  the  school  again  on 
a  rather  larger  scale.  The  body  of  clerks,  thus  pent  up  for 
eight  hours  at  a  stretch,  looked  upon  the  offices  as  class- 
rooms in  which  a  certain  amount  of  lessons  must  be  done. 
The  master  on  duty  was  called  the  head  of  the  division  ;  extra 
pay  took  the  place  of  good-conduct  prizes,  and  always  fell  to 
favorites.  They  teased  and  disliked  each  other,  and  yet  there 
was  a  sort  of  good-fellowship  among  them — though,  even  so, 
it  was  cooler  than  the  same  feeling  in  a  regiment ;  and  in  the 
regiment,  again,  it  is  not  so  strong  as  it  is  among  schoolboys. 
As  a  man  advances  in  life,  egoism  develops  with  his  growth 
and  slackens  the  secondary  ties  of  affection.  What  is  an  office, 
in  short,  but  a  world  in  miniature? — a  world  with  its  unac- 
countable freaks,  its  friendships  and  hatreds,  its  envy  and 
greed,  its  continual  movement  to  the  front  ?  There,  too,  is 
the  light  talk  that  makes  many  a  wound,  and  espionage  that 
never  ceases. 

At  this  particular  moment  the  whole  division,  headed  by 
M.  le  Baron  de  la  Billardiere,  was  shaken  by  an  extraordinary 
commotion  ;  and,  indeed,  coming  events  fully  justified  the 
excitement,  for  heads  of  divisions  do  not  die  every  day;  and 
no  tontine  insurance  association  can  calculate  the  probabilities 
of  life  and  death  with  more  sagacity  than  a  government  office. 
In  government  clerks,  as  in  children,  self-interest  leaves  no 
room  for  pity;  but  the  clerk  has  hypocrisy  in  addition. 

Toward  eight    o'clock  Baudoyer's   staff  were  taking  their 


316  LES  EMPLOYES. 

places,  whefeas  Rabourdin's  clerks  had  scarcely  begun  to  put 
in  an  appearance  at  nine ;  and  yet  the  work  was  done  much 
more  quickly  in  the  latter  office.  Dutocq  had  weighty  reasons 
of  his  own  for  arriving  early.  He  had  stolen  into  the  private 
office  the  night  before,  and  detected  Sebastien  in  the  act  of 
copying  out  papers  for  Rabourdin.  He  had  hidden  himself, 
and  watched  Sdbastien  go  out  without  the  papers;  and  then, 
feeling  sure  of  finding  a  tolerably  bulky  rough  draft  and  the  fair 
copy,  he  had  hunted  through  one  pasteboard  case  after  an- 
other, till  at  last  he  found  the  terrible  list.  Hurrying  away  to 
a  lithographer's  establishment,  he  had  two  impressions  of  the 
sheet  taken  off  with  a  copying-press,  and  in  this  way  became 
possessed  of  Rabourdin's  own  handwriting.  Then,  to  prevent 
suspicion,  he  went  to  the  office  the  first  thing  in  the  morning 
and  put  the  rough  draft  back  in  the  case.  Sebastien  had 
stayed  till  midnight  in  the  Rue  Duphot.  In  spite  of  his  dili- 
gence, hatred  was  beforehand  with  him.  Hatred  dwelt  in  the 
Rue  Saint-Louis-Saint-Honor6,  whereas  devotion  lived  in  the 
Rue  du  Roi  Dore  in  the  Marais.  Rabourdin  was  to  feel  the 
effect  of  that  trivial  delay  through  the  rest  of  his  life.  Sebas- 
tien hurried  to  open  the  case,  found  all  in  order,  and  locked 
up  the  rough  draft  and  unfinished  copy  in  his  chief's  desk. 

On  a  morning  toward  the  end  of  December  the  light  is 
usually  dim  ;  in  our  offices,  indeed,  they  often  work  by  lamp- 
light until  ten  o'clock.  So  Sebastien  did  not  notice  the  mark 
of  the  stone  on  the  paper ;  but  at  half-past  nine,  when  Ra- 
bourdin looked  closely  at  his  draft,  he  saw  that  it  had  been 
submitted  to  some  copying  process  ;  he  was  the  more  likely  to 
see  the  traces  of  the  slab,  because  of  late  he  had  been  much 
interested  in  experiments  in  lithography,  for  he  thought  that 
a  press  might  do  the  work  of  a  copying  clerk. 

Rabourdin  seated  himself  in  his  chair.  So  deeply  was  he 
absorbed  in  his  reflections  that  he  took  the  tongs  and  began 
to  build  up  the  fire.  Then  curious  to  know  into  what  hands 
his  secret  had  fallen,  he  sent  for  Sebastien. 


LES  EMPLOYES.  317 

"  Did  any  one  come  to  the  office  before  you?  " 

' '  Yes  ;  Monsieur  Dutocq. ' ' 

"Good.     He  is  punctual.     Send  Antoine  to  me," 

Rabourdin  was  too  magnanimous  to  cause  Sebastien  need- 
less distress  by  reproaching  him  now  that  the  mischief  was 
done.  He  said  no  more  about  it.  Antoine  came.  Rabour- 
din asked  if  any  of  the  clerks  had  stayed  after  four  o'clock  on 
the  previous  day.  Antoine  said  that  Monsieur  Dutocq  had 
stayed  even  later  than  Monsieur  de  la  Roche.  Rabourdiii 
nodded,  and  resumed  the  course  of  his  reflections. 

"Twice  I  have  prevented  his  dismissal,"  he  said  to  himself, 
"  and  this  is  my  reward  !  " 

For  Rabourdin  that  morning  was  to  be  the  solemn  crisis 
when  great  captains  decide  upon  a  battle  after  weighing  all 
possible  consequences.  No  one  better  knew  the  temper  of 
the  offices;  he  was  perfectly  aware  that  anything  resembling 
espionage  or  tale-telling  is  no  more  pardoned  by  clerks  than 
by  schoolboys.  The  man  that  can  tell  tales  of  his  comrades 
is  disgraced,  ruined,  and  traduced  ;  ministers  in  such  a  case 
will  drop  their  instrument.  Any  man  in  the  service,  under 
these  circumstances,  sends  in  his  resignation — no  other  course 
is  open  to  him  ;  upon  his  honor  there  lies  a  stain  that  can 
never  be  wiped  out.  Explanations  are  useless — nobody  wants 
them,  nobody  will  listen  to  them.  A  cabinet  minister  in  the 
like  case  is  a  great  man ;  it  is  his  business  to  choose  men  ; 
but  a  mere  subordinate  is  taken  for  a  spy,  no  matter  what  his 
motives  may  be.  Even  while  Rabourdin  measured  the  emptiness 
of  this  folly,  he  saw  the  depths  of  it — saw,  too,  that  he  must 
sink.  He  was  not  so  much  overwhelmed  as  taken  by  surprise  ; 
so  he  sat  pondering  his  best  course  of  action  in  the  matter, 
and  knew  nothing  of  the  commotion  caused  in  the  offices  by  the 
news  of  the  death  of  M.  de  la  Billardiere  till  he  heard  of  it 
through  young  de  la  Bri6re,  who  could  appreciate  the  immense 
value  of  the  chief  clerk. 

Meanwhile  in  the  Baudoyers'   office   (for  the  clerks  were 


318  LES  EMPLOYES. 

respectively  knoAvn  as  ihe  Baudoyers  and  the  Rabourdins) 
Bixiou  was  giving  the  details  of  La  Billardiere's  last  moments 
for  the  benefit  of  Minard,  Desroys,  M.  Godaid  (whom  he  had 
fetched  out  of  his  sanctum),  and  Dutocq.  A  double  motive 
had  sent  the  last-named  individual  hurrying  over  to  the 
Baudoyers. 

Bixiou  {standing  before  the  stove,  holding  first  one  boot  and 
then  the  other  to  the  fire  to  dry  the  soles).  "  This  morning  at 
half-past  seven  I  went  to  inquire  after  our  worthy  and  revered 
director,  Chevalier  of  Christ,  et  csetera.  Et  csetera?  My 
goodness,  I  should  think  so,  gentlemen;  only  yesterday  the 
baron  was  a  score  of  et  caleras,  and  now  to-day  he  is  nothing, 
not  even  a  government  clerk.  I  asked  what  sort  of  a  night 
he  had  had.  His  nurse  who  does  not  die,  but  surrenders, 
told  me  that  toward  five  o'clock  this  morning  he  had  felt 
uneasy  about  the  royal  family.  He  got  somebody  to  read 
over  the  names  of  those  that  had  sent  to  make  inquiries. 
Then  he  said,  '  Fill  my  snuff-box,  give  me  the  newspaper, 
bring  me  my  glasses,  and  change  my  ribbon  of  the  Legion  of 
Honor,  for  it  is  getting  very  dirty.'  (He  wears  his  orders  in 
bed,  you  know.)  So  he  was  fully  conscious,  you  see,  quite  in 
the  possession  of  all  his  faculties  and  habitual  ideas.  But, 
pooh  !  ten  minutes  afterward  the  water  had  gone  up,  up,  up  ; 
up  to  his  heart  and  into  his  lungs.  He  knew  he  was  dying 
when  he  felt  the  cysts  break.  At  that  supreme  moment  he 
showed  what  he  was — how  strong  his  character,  his  intellect 
how  vast !  Ah  !  some  of  us  did  not  appreciate  him.  We 
used  to  laugh  at  him;  we  took  him  for  a  dunce;  for  the 
veriest  dunce,  did  we  not  M.  Godard?" 

GoDARD.  "  For  my  own  part,  nobody  could  have  a  higher 
opinion  of  Monsieur  de  la  Billardiere's  talents  than  L" 

Bixiou.     "  You  understood  each  other." 

Godard.  "After  all,  'twas  not  a  spiteful  man.  He  never 
did  anybody  harm." 

Bixiou.     "  A  man  must  do  something  if  he  is  to  do  harm, 


LES  EMFLOYAS.  319 

and  he  never  did  anything.  Then  if  it  was  not  you  that 
thought  him  hopelessly  inept,  it  must  have  been  Minard." 

MiNARD  {shrugging  his  shoulders).      *•'  I  ?  " 

Bixiou.  "Well,  then,  it  was  you,  Dutocq."  {As  Dutocq 
makes  signs  of  vehement  protest.)  "  What  !  you  none  of  you 
thought  so  ?  Good  !  Everybody  here,  it  seems,  took  him 
for  an  intellectual  Hercules  ?  Very  well,  you  were  right ;  he 
made  an  end  like  a  man  of  talent,  an  intelligent  man,  a  great 
man,  as  he  was,  in  fact." 

Desroys  (^growing  impatient).  "Gracious  me!  what  has 
he  done  that  is  so  extraordinary?  Did  he  make  confes- 
sion?" 

Bixiou.  "Yes,  sir,  and  expressed  a  wish  to  receive  the 
sacraments.  But  do  you  know  how  he  received  them  ?  He 
had  himself  put  into  a  Court  suit  as  gentleman  in  ordinary, 
he  had  all  his  orders,  he  even  had  his  hair  powdered ;  they 
tied  up  his  queue  (poor  queue)  with  a  new  ribbon  (and  it  is 
only  a  man  of  some  character,  I  can  tell  you,  that  can  mind 
his  p's  and  queues  when  he  lies  a-dying ;  there  are  eight  of  us 
here,  and  not  a  single  one  of  us  could  do  it).  And  that  is 
not  all  ;  you  know  that  celebrated  men  always  make  a  last 
*  speech  ' — that  is  the  English  word  for  a  parliamentary  gag — 
well,  he  said — what  did  he  say  now  ? — ah  !  yes  j  he  said,  '  I 
ought  surely  to  put  on  my  best  to  receive  the  King  of  Heaven, 
when  I  have  so  many  times  dressed  within  an  inch  of  my  life 
to  pay  my  respects  to  an  earthly  sovereign  !  '  Thus  ended 
Monsieur  de  la  Billardi^re ;  he  might  have  done  it  on  pur- 
pose to  justify  the  saying  of  Pythagoras  that  '  we  never  know 
men  until  they  are  dead.'  " 

CoLLEViLLE  {comijig  in).  "At  last,  gentlemen,  I  have  a 
famous  piece  of  news  for  you " 

Omnes.     "  We  know  it." 

CoLLEViLLE.  "  I  defy  you  to  guess  it  !  I  have  been  at  this 
ever  since  his  majesty's  accession  to  the  thrones  of  France 
and  Navarre;  and  I  finished  it  last  night.      It  bothered  me  so 


320  LES  EMPLOYES. 

much  that  Madame  CoUeville  wanted  to  know  what  it  was 
that  worried  me  so  much." 

DuTOCQ.  "  Do  you  suppose  that  anybody  has  time  to  think 
of  your  anagrams  when  the  highly  respected  Monsieur  de  la 
Billardierc  has  just  died?" 

CoLLEViLLE.  "  I  recognizc  Bixiou's  hand.  I  have  only  just 
been  to  Monsieur  de  la  Billardiere's  ;  he  was  still  alive,  but 
he  is  not  expected  to  last  long."  {Godard  discovers  thai  he 
has  been  hoaxed,  and  goes  back  in  disgust  to  his  sanctum.^ 
"But,  gentlemen,  you  would  never  guess  the  events  that  lie 
in  that  sacramental  phrase"  {holds  out  a  paper),  "■Charles 
Dix,  par  la  grace  de  Dieu,  roi  de  France  et  de  Navarre.'''''^ 

GoDARD  {coming  back).  "  Out  with  it  at  once,  and  do  not 
waste  their  time." 

CoLLEViLLE  {triumphantly,  displays  the  folded  end  of  the 
sheet). 

A.  H.  V.  il  cedera 
De  S.  C.  I.  d.  partira 
En  nauf  errera 
Decede  a  Gorix. 

"All  the  letters  are  there:  'To  H.  V.'  (Henri  V.)  'he 
will  yield'  (his  crown,  that  is);  'From  S.  C.  1.  d.'  (Saint 
Cloud)  'he  will  set  forth;  On  a  bark'  (that  means  a  boat, 
skiff,  vessel,  whatever  you  like,  it  is  an  old  French  word),  'on 
a  bark  he  will  wander  abroad '  " 

DuTOCQ.  "What  a  tissue  of  absurdities!  How  do  you 
make  it  out  that  the  King  will  resign  his  crown  to  Henri  V., 
who,  on  your  showing,  would  be  his  grandson,  when  there  is 
his  highness  the  Dauph'n  in  between  ?  You  are  prophesying 
the  Dauphin's  death  anyhow." 

Bixiou.     "What  is  Gorix  ?     A  cat's  name  ?  " 

CoLLEViLLE  {nettled).  "  It  is  a  lapidary's  abbreviation  of 
the  name  of  a  town,  my  dear  friend ;  I  looked  it  up  in  Malte- 

*  Charles  X.,  by  the  grace  of  God,  King  of  France  and  Navarre. 


LES  EMPLOYES.  321 

Brun.     Gorix,  the  Latin    Gorixia,  is  situated  somewhere  in 

Bohemia  or  Hungary  ;  it  is  in  Austria  any  way " 

Bixiou  {tnierrupiing).  "Tyrol,  Basque  provinces,  or  South 
America.  You  ought  to  have  looked  out  an  air  at  the  same 
time  so  as  to  play  it  on  the  clarionet." 

GoDARD  {shrugging  his  shoulders  as  he  goes).  "  What  rub- 
bish !  " 

CoLLEViLLE.  "  Rubbish  !  rubbish  !  I  should  be  very  glad 
if  you  would  take  the  trouble  to  study  fatalism,  the  religion 
of  the  Emperor  Napoleon." 

GoDARD  {nettled  by  Colleville^s  tone).  "Monsieur  Colle- 
ville,  Bonaparte  may  be  styled  '  Emperor '  by  historians,  but 
in  a  Government  office  he  ought  not  to  be  recognized  in  that 
character." 

Bixiou  {smiling).  "  Find  an  anagram  in  that,  my  good 
friend.  There !  as  for  anagrams,  I  like  your  wife  better. 
{soito  voce)  She  is  easier  to  turn  round.  Flavie  really  ought 
to  make  you  chief  clerk  at  some  odd  moment  when  she  has 
time  to  spare,  if  it  were  only  to  put   you  out  of  reach  of  a 

Godard's  stupidity " 

DuTOCQ  {coming  to  Godard's  support).  "If  it  wasn't  all 
rubbish,  you  might  lose  your  place,  for  the  things  you  prophesy 
are  not  exactly  pleasant  for  the  King;  every  good  Royalist  is 
bound  to  assume  that  when  he  has  been  twice  in  exile  he  has 
seen  enough  of  foreign  parts." 

CoLLEViLLE.  "  If  they  took  away  my  post,  Francois  Keller 
would  walk  into  your  minister"  {deep  silence).  "Know, 
Master  Dutocq,  that  every  known  anagram  has  been  fulfilled. 
Look  here  !  don't  you  marry,  there  is  coqu"^  in  your  name  !  " 
Bixiou.  "And  D  T  left  over  for  'detestable.'  " 
Dutocq  {not  apparently  put  out).  "  I  would  rather  it  went 
no  further  than  my  name." 

Paulmier  {aside  to  Desroys).  "  Had  you  there,  Master 
Colleville!  " 

*  Cocu — cuckold. 
21 


322  LES  EMPLOYES. 

DuTOCQ  {to  Colleville).  "  Have  you  done.  Xavier  Rabour- 
din,  chef  de  bureau " 

Colleville.     "  Egad  I  have. " 

Bixiou  {cutting  a  pen).  "And  what  did  you  make  out?  " 
he  asked. 

Colleville.  "It  makes  this:  D' abord  riva  bureaux,  E. 
U.  Do  you  take  it  ?  Et  il  eui  fin  riche.  Which  means 
that  after  beginning  in  the  civil  service  he  chucked  it  over  to 
make  his  fortune  somewhere  else." 

DuTOCQ.      "It  is  funny,  anyhow." 

Bixiou.      "And  Isidore  Baudoyer  /  " 

Colleville  {mysteriously).  "I  would  rather  not  tell  any- 
body but  Thullier." 

Bixiou.     "  Bet  you  a  breakfast  I  will  tell  you  what  it  is !  " 

Colleville.     "  I  will  pay  if  you  find  out." 

Bixiou.  "Then  you  are  going  to  stand  treat;  but  don't 
be  vexed,  two  artists  such  as  you  and  I  will  die  of  laughing. 
Isidore  Baudoyer  gives  Ris  d^aboyeur  d^oie,  he  laughs  at  the 
fellow  that  barks  at  a  goose." 

Colleville  {thunderstruck).     "  You  stole  it !  " 

Bixiou  (i//^).  "Monsieur  Colleville,  do  me  the  honor 
to  believe  that  I  am  so  rich  in  folly  that  I  have  no  need  to 
steal  from  my  neighbors." 

BxuDoyER  {a  letter-fiie  in  his  hand).  "Talk  just  a  little 
louder,  gentlemen,  I  beg ;  you  will  bring  the  office  into  good 
odor.  The  estimable  Monsieur  Clergeot,  who  did  me  the 
honor  to  come  to  ask  for  some  information,  has  had  the  bene- 
fit of  your  conversation"  {goes  to  Godard^ s  office). 

DuTOCQ  {aside  to  Bixiou).  "I  have  something  to  say  to 
you." 

Bixiou  {fingering  Dutocq' s  waistcoat).  "  You  are  wearing 
a  neat  waistcoat  which  cost  you  next  to  nothing,  no  doubt. 
Is  that  the  secret?" 

DuTOCQ.  "What?  Next  to  nothing?  I  never  gave  so 
much  for  a  waistcoat  before.     The  stuff  costs  six  francs  a  yard 


LES  EMPLOY  As.  323 

at  the  big  store  in  the  Rue  de  la  Paix ;  it  is  a  fine  dull  silk, 
just  the  thing  for  deep  mourning." 

Bixiou.  "You  understand  prints,  but  you  do  not  know 
the  rules  of  etiquette.  One  cannot  know  everything.  Silk 
is  not  the  proper  thing  to  wear  in  deep  mourning.  That  is 
why  I  only  wear  wool  myself.  Monsieur  Rabourdin,  Mon- 
sieur Clergeot,  and  the  minister  are  all-wool ;  the  Faubourg 
Saint-Germain  is  all-wool.  Every  one  goes  about  in  wool 
except  Minard  ;  he  is  afraid  that  people  will  take  him  for  a 
sheep,  styled  laniger  in  rustical  Latin  ;  and  on  that  pretext  he 
dispensed  with  mourning  for  King  Louis  XVIIL,  a  great 
legislator,  a  witty  man,  the  author  of  the  Charter,  a  king  that 
will  hold  his  own  in  history,  as  he  held  it  everywhere  else ; 
for — do  you  know  the  finest  touch  of  character  in  his  life? 
No?  Well,  then,  when  he  received  all  the  allied  sovereigns 
at  his  second  entry,  he  walked  out  first  to  table." 

Paulmier  (^looking  at  Duiocq).     "  I  do  not  see " 

DuTOCQ  {^looking  at  Paulmier).  "  No  more  do  L" 
Bixiou.  "You  do  not  understand?  Well,  then;  he  did 
not  regard  himself  as  at  home  in  his  own  house.  It  was  in- 
genious, great,  epigrammatic  !  The  allied  sovereigns  under- 
stood it  no  more  than  you  do,  even  when  they  put  their  heads 
together  to  make  it   out.     It   is   true   that   they  were  pretty 

nearly  all  of  them  strangers " 

Baudover  (in  his  assistant  clerk" s  sanctum,  where  he  has 
been  conversing  in  an  undertone  beside  the  fire,  while  the  talk 
went  on  outside').  "Yes,  our  worthy  chief  is  breathing  his 
last.  Both  ministers  are  there  to  receive  his  latest  sigh  ;  my 
father-in-law  has  just  been  informed  of  the  event.  If  you  wish 
to  do  me  a  signal  service,  take  a  cabriolet  and  go  to  Madame 
Baudoyer  with  the  news ;  Saillard  cannot  leave  his  desk, 
and  I  dare  not  leave  the  office  to  look  after  itself.  Put  your- 
self at  Madame  Baudoyer's  disposal ;  she  has  her  own  views,  I 
believe,  and  might  possibly  wish  to  take  several  steps  simul- 
taneously "  {they  go  out  together). 


324  LES  EMPLOYES. 

GoDARD.  "Monsieur  Bixiou,  I  am  leaving  the  office  for 
the  day,  so  will  you  take  my  place?" 

Baudoyer  {^looking  benignly  at  Bixiou).  "  You  might  con- 
sult me  should  occasion  require  it." 

Bixiou.     "  This  time,  La  Billardiere  is  really  dead  !  " 

DuTOCQ  {whispers  to  Bixiou).  "  Look  here  !  Now  is  the 
time  for  coming  to  an  understanding  about  getting  on.  Sup- 
pose that  you  are  chief  clerk  and  I  assistant ;  what  do  you 
say?" 

Bixiou  {shrugging  his  shoulders).     "  Come,  no  nonsense  !  " 

DuTOCQ.  "  If  Baudoyer  gets  the  appointment,  Rabourdin 
will  not  stay  on  ;  he  will  send  in  his  resignation.  Between 
ourselves,  Baudoyer  is  so  incompetent  that  if  you  and  du 
Bruel  will  not  help  him  he  will  be  cashiered  in  two  months' 
time.  If  I  can  put  two  and  two  together,  we  have  three 
vacant  places  ahead  of  us." 

Bixiou.  "  Three  places  that  will  be  given  away  under  our 
noses;  they  will  go  to  swag-bellied  toadies,  flunkeys,  spies, 
and  men  of  the  '  Congregation  ; '  to  Colleville  here,  whose 
wife  has  gone  the  way  of  all  pretty  women,  to — a  devout 
ending." 

DuTOCQ.      "  It  will  go  to  you,  my  dear  fellow,  if  for  once 
in  your  life  you  care  to  employ  your  wits  consistently''  {stop- 
ping short  to  note  the  effect  of  the  adverb  upon  his  listener). 
"  Let  us  be  open  and  aboveboard." 

Bixiou  {itnperturbably).     "  What  is  your  game?  " 

DuTOCQ.  "For  my  own  part,  I  want  to  be  chief  clerk's 
assistant  and  nothing  else.  I  know  myself;  I  know  that  I 
have  not  the  ability  to  be  chief,  and  that  you  have.  Du  Bruel 
may  get  La  Ballardi^re's  place,  and  then  you  would  be  chief 
clerk  under  him.  He  will  leave  you  his  berth  when  he  has 
feathered  his  nest ;  and  as  for  me,  with  you  to  protect  me,  I 
shall  potter  along  till  I  get  my  pension." 

Bixiou.  "  Sly  dog.  But  how  do  you  mean  to  bring  this 
through  ?     It   is  a  matter  of  forcing  a  minister's  hand  and 


LES  EMPLOYES.  32a 

spitting  out  a  man  of  talent.  Between  ourselves,  Rabourdin 
is  the  only  man  that  is  fit  to  take  the  division — the  depart- 
ment, who  knows  ?  And  you  propose  to  put  that  square  block 
of  stupidity,  that  cube  of  incompetence.  La  Place-Baudoyer, 
in  his  stead?  " 

DuTOCQ  {bridling  up).  "My  dear  fellow,  I  can  set  the 
whole  place  against*  Rabourdin  !  You  know  how  Fleury  loves 
him?     Well  and  good,  Fleury  shall  look  down  upon  him." 

Bixiou.      "To  be  despised  by  Fleury  !  " 

DuTOCQ.  "  Nobody  will  stand  by  him.  The  clerks  will  go 
in  a  body  to  the  minister  to  complain  of  him ;  and  not  our 
division  only,  but  Clergeot's  division  and  the  Bois-Levants, 
all  the  departments  in  a  mass." 

Bixiou.  "Just  so;  cavalry,  infantry,  artillery,  and  horse- 
marines,  all  to  the  front !  You  are  off  your  head,  my  dear 
fellow  !     And  what  have  I,  for  one,  to  do  in  this?  " 

DuTOCQ.  "  Draw  a  cutting  caricature,  a  thing,  that  a  man 
cannot  get  over." 

Bixiou.     "Are  you  going  to  pay  for  it  ?" 

DuTOCQ.     "A  hundred  francs." 

Bixiou  {to  himself).     "  There  is  something  in  it,  then." 

DuTOCQ.  "  Rabourdin  might  be  dressed  as  a  butcher;  but 
the  likeness  must  be  unmistakable.  Find  out  points  of  re- 
semblance between  an  office  and  a  kitchen  ;  put  a  larding-knife 
in  Rabourdin's  hand ;  draw  a  lot  of  poultry,  give  them  the 
heads  of  the  principal  clerks  in  the  department,  and  put  them 
in  a  huge  coop  with  '  Dispatcli  Department '  written  over  it, 
and  Rabourdin  must  be  supposed  to  be  cutting  their  throats 
one  after  another.  There  should  be  geese,  you  know,  and 
ducks  with  faces  like  ours;  just  a  sort  of  a  likeness,  you  under- 
stand !  Rabourdin  ought  to  have  a  fowl  in  his  hand — Bau- 
doyer,  for  example,  got  up  as  a  turkey." 

Bixiou.  "  '  Laughs  at  those  that  bark  at  a  goose  '  " 
(stares  a  long  while  at  Dutocq).  "  Did  you  think  of  this  your- 
self?" 


326  LES  EMPLOYES. 

DuTOCQ.     "Yes." 

Bixiou  {io  himself).  "  Violent  hatred  and  talent,  it  seems, 
reach  the  same  end  !  "  (To  Dutocq)  "  My  dear  fellow,  I  will 
do  it  "  {^Dutocq  starts  with  Joy  in  spite  of  himself)  "if" — 
(pause) — "  if  I  know  whom  I  can  look,  to  to  back  me  up;  for 
if  you  do  not  succeed,  I  shall  lose  my  berth,  and  I  must  live. 
And  what  is  more,  your  good-nature  is  somewhat  singular,  my 
dear  colleague. ' ' 

DuTOCQ.  "  Well,  do  not  make  the  drawing  until  success 
is  plain  to  you " 

Bixiou.  "  Why  not  make  a  clean  breast  of  it  at  once,  and 
tell  me  all?" 

DuTOCQ.  "I  must  scent  out  how  things  are  in  the  offices 
first.     We  will  talk  of  this  again  afterward  "  (goes). 

Bixiou  (le/t  standino  by  himself  in  the  corridor).  "That 
stock-fish  (for  he  is  more  like  a  fish  than  a  man),  that  Dutocq 
has  got  hold  of  a  good  idea,  I  do  not  know  where  he  found  it. 
It  would  be  funny  if  La  Place-Baudoyer  got  La  Billardidre's 
place ;  it  would  be  better  than  funny  ;  we  should  get  some- 
thing by  it."  (Goes  back  to  the  office.)  "Gentlemen,  some 
famous  changes  will  be  seen  here  directly  ;  Daddy  La  Billar- 
didre  is  really  dead  this  time.  No  humbug  !  Word  of  honor  ! 
There  goes  Godard  post-haste  on  an  errand  for  our  revered 
chief,  Baudoyer,  heir-presumptive  to  the  late  lamented  !  " 
(Minard,  Desroys,  and  Colleville  raise  their  heads  and  drop 
their  pens  in  astonishment ;  Colleville  blows  his  nose.)  "  Some 
of  us  will  get  a  step  ;  Colleville  is  going  to  be  assistant  clerk  at 
least;  Minard,  perhaps,  will  be  first  draughting  clerk ;  why 
not  ?  He  is  every  bit  as  great  a  fool  as  I  am.  If  you  were 
raised  to  two  thousand  five  hundred  francs — eh,  Minard  ! — 
your  little  wife  would  be  finely  pleased,  and  you  might  buy 
yourself  a  pair  of  boots." 

Colleville.  "But  you  have  not  two  thousand  five  hundred 
francs  yet." 

Bixiou.     "Monsieur  Dutocq  gets  as  much  as  that  in  the 


LES  EMFLOYAS.  327 

Rabourdins'.     Why  should  not  I  within  the  year?     So  had 
Monsieur  Baudoyer " 

CoLLEViLLE.  ''That  was  through  the  Saillards'  influence. 
Not  a  single  draughting  clerk  gets  so  much  in  Clergeot's  di- 
vision." 

Paulmier.  "  By  the  way!  Monsieur  Cochin,  may  be,  has 
not  three  thousand  ?  He  succeeded  Monsieur  Vavasseur,  and 
Monsieur  Vavasseur  was  here  for  ten  years  under  the  Empire 
on  four  thousand,  he  was  cut  down  to  three  thousand  on  the 
first  return  of  the  Bourbons,  and  died  on  two  thousand  five 
hundred.  But  Monsieur  Cochin's  brother's  influence  raised 
it,  and  so  he  gets  three." 

CoLLEViLLE.  "  Monsieur  Cochin  signs  himself  E.  L.  L.  E. 
Cochin;  his  name  is  Emile-Louis-Lucien-Emmanuel,  and  his 
anagram  gives  Cochenille.  Well,  and  he  became  a  partner  in 
a  drug  business  in  the  Rue  dcs  Lombards,  and  the  firm  of 
Matifat  made  money  by  speculating  in  that  particular  colonial 
product." 

Bixiou.     "  Matifat,  poor  man,  he  had  a  year  of  Florine." 

COLLEVILLE.  "  Cochin  sometimes  comes  to  our  parties, 
for  he  is  a  first-rate  performer  on  the  violin."  {To  Bixiou, 
who  has  not  begun  to  work.^  "You  ought  to  come  to  our 
concert  next  Tuesday.    They  will  play  a  quartette  by  Reicha." 

Bixiou.      "  Thanks,  I  would  rather  look  at  the  score." 

CoLLEViLLE.  "  Do  you  Say  that  for  a  joke  ?  For  an  artist 
of  your  attainments  ought  surely  to  be  fond  of  music." 

Bixiou.      "  I  am  going,  but  it  is  for  madame's  sake." 

Baudoyer  {returning).  "  Monsieur  Chazelle  not  here  yet? 
Give  him  my  compliments,  gentlemen." 

Bixiou  {who  had  put  a  hat  on  Chazelle^ s  place  as  soon  as 
he  heard  Baudoyer' s  footstep).  "  Begging  your  pardon,  mon- 
sieur, he  has  gone  to  make  an  inquiry  of  the  Rabourdins  for 
you." 

Chazelle  {coming  in  with  his  hat  on  his  head,  misses  seeing 
Baudoyer).     "  Old  La  Billardiere  has  gone  out,  gentlemen  ! 


328  LES  EMPLOYES. 

Rabourdin  is  head  of  the  division  and  master  of  requests  !     He 
has  fairly  earned  his  step,  he  has  ! " 

Baudoyer  (Jo  Chazelle).  "You  found  the  appointment  in 
your  second  hat,  sir,  did  you  not?"  (^pointing  io  the  hat  on 
ChazelW s  desk.)  "  This  is  the  third  time  this  month  that 
you  have  come  in  after  nine  o'clock ;  if  you  keep  it  up,  you 
will  get  on,  but  in  what  sense  remains  to  be  seen."  (To 
Bixiou,  who  is  reading  a  fiewspaper.)  "  My  dear  Monsieur 
Bixiou,  for  pity's  sake,  leave  the  paper  to  these  gentlemen 
(they  are  just  going  to  take  their  breakfasts),  and  come  and  set 
about  to-day's  business.  I  do  not  know  what  Monsieur  Ra- 
bourdin does  with  Gabriel ;  he  keeps  him  for  his  own  private 
use,  I  suppose,  for  I  have  rung  three  times"  (disappears  with 
Bixiou  into  Godard's  office^ 

Chazelle.     "  Cursed  luck  !  " 

Paulmier  {delighted  to  tease  Chazelle).  "  So  they  did  not 
tell  you  downstairs  that  he  had  gone  up?  Anyhow,  could 
you  not  use  your  eyes  when  you  came  in,  and  see  the  hat  on 
your  desk,  and  that  elephant " 

Colleville  (laughing)  " — in  the  menagerie." 

Paulmier.  "You  ought  to  have  seen  him — he  is  big 
enough." 

Chazelle  (desperately).  "Egad  !  even  if  the  Government 
pays  us  four  francs  seventy-five  centimes  per  day,  I  do  not  see 
that  we  are  slaves  in  consequence." 

Fleury  (coming  in  at  the  door).  "Down  with  Baudoyer! 
Long  live  Rabourdin  !  That  is  the  cry  all  through  the 
division." 

Chazelle  (lashing  himself  into  fury).  "Baudoyer  is  wel- 
come to  cashier  me  if  he  has  a  mind  ;  I  shall  be  no  worse 
off  than  before.  There  are  a  thousand  ways  of  earning  five 
francs  a  day  in  Paris ;  you  can  make  that  at  the  Palais  by 
copying  for  the  lawyers " 

Paulmier.  "  So  you  say,  but  a  berth  is  a  berth ;  and 
Colleville,   that  courageous  fellow  who  works  like  a  galley. 


LES  EMPLOYES.  329 

slave  after  hours,  and  might  make  more  than  his  salary  if  he 
lost  his  post  by  giving  music  lessons — he  will  keep  his  berth. 
Hang  it  all,  a  man  does  not  throw  up  his  chances." 

Chazelle  {continuing  his  philippic).  "  He  may,  not  I. 
We  haven't  any  chance  to  lose.  Confound  it !  There  was  a 
time  when  nothing  was  more  tempting  than  a  career  in  the 
civil  service ;  there  were  so  many  men  in  the  army  that  they 
were  wanted  in  the  administration.  The  maimed  and  the 
halt,  toothless  old  men,  unhealthy  fellows  like  Paulmier,  and 
short-sighted  people  got  on  rapidly.  The  lycees  swarmed 
with  boys,  and  families  were  dazzled  with  the  brilliant  pros- 
pect. A  young  fellow  in  spectacles  wore  a  blue  coat  and  a 
red  ribbon  blazing  at  his  button-hole,  and  drew  a  thousand  or 
so  of  francs  every  month  for  spending  a  few  hours  every  day 
at  some  office  looking  after  something  or  other.  He  went 
late  and  came  away  early  ;  he  had  hours  of  leisure,  like  Lord 
Byron,  and  wrote  novels  ;  he  strolled  in  the  Tuileries  gardens 
with  a  bit  of  a  swagger;  he  was  on  exhibition  at  balls  and 
theatres  and  everywhere  else  ;  he  was  admitted  into  the  best 
society;  he  spent  his  salary,  returning  to  France  all  that 
France  gave  him,  and  even  doing  something  in  return.  In 
those  days,  in  fact,  employes  (like  Thuillier)  were  petted  by 
pretty  women;  they  were  supposed  to  be  intelligent,  and  by 
no  means  overworked  themselves  at  the  office.  Empresses, 
queens,  and  princesses  had  their  fancies  in  those  happy  days. 
All  those  noble  ladies  had  the  passion  of  noble  natures — they 
loved  to  play  the  protector.  So  there  was  a  chance  of  filling 
a  high  position  in  twenty-five  years  or  so ;  you  might  be  aud- 
itor to  the  Council  of  State ;  or  a  master  of  requests,  and 
draw  up  reports  for  the  Emperor,  while  you  amused  yourself 
with  his  august  family.  People  used  to  work  and  play  at  the 
same  time.  Everything  was  done  quickly.  But  nowadays, 
since  the  Chamber  bethought  itself  of  entering  the  expendi- 
ture under  separate  items,  and  the  heading  'Staff,'  we  are 
not  even   like  private  soldiers.      It  is  a  thousand  to  one  if 


330  LES  EMPLOYES. 

you  get  the  smallest  appointment,  for  there  are  a  thousand 


sovereigns- 


Bixiou  {reiurning).  "  Chazclle  must  be  crazy.  Where 
does  he  discover  a  thousand  sovereigns  ?  Are  they  by  any 
chance  in  his  pocket? " 

Chazelle.  "  Let  us  reckon  them  up  !  Four  hundred  at 
the  farther  end  of  the  Pont  de  la  Concorde  (so  called  because 
it  leads  to  perpetual  discord  between  the  Right  and  the  Left 
in  the  Chamber);  three  hundred  more  at  the  top  of  the  Rue 
de  Tournon.  So  the  Court,  which  ought  to  count  for  three 
hundred,  is  obliged  to  have  seven  hundred  times  the  Em- 
peror's strength  of  will,  if  it  means  to  give  any  place  whatso- 
ever by  patronage " 

Fleury.  "  Which  all  means  that,  if  a  clerk  has  no  interest 
and  no  one  to  help  him  but  himself  in  a  country  where  there 
are  three  centres  of  power,  the  betting  is  a  thousand  to  one 
that  he  will  never  get  any  further." 

Bixiou  {looking  from  Fleury  to  Chazelle).  "  Aha  !  my  chil- 
dren, you  have  yet  to  learn  that  to  be  in  the  service  of  the 
State  is  to  be  in  the  worst  state  of  all " 

Fleury.  "  Because  there  is  a  properly  instituted  constitu- 
tional Government." 

CoLLEviLLE.     "  Gentlemen  I   let  us  not  talk  politics." 

Bixiou.  "  Fleury  is  right.  If  you  serve  the  State  in  these 
days,  gentlemen,  you  do  not  serve  a  prince  who  rewards  and 
punishes.  The  State  is  Anybody  and  Everybody.  Now, 
Everybody  cares  for  Nobody.  If  you  serve  Everybody,  you 
serve  Nobody;  and  Nobody  cares  about  Anybody.  A  civil 
servant  lives  between  these  two  negatives.  The  world  is  piti- 
less, heartless,  brainless,  and  thoughtless;  Everybody  is  sel- 
fish. Everybody  forgets  the  services  of  yesterday.  You  are 
(like  Monsieur  Baudoyer)  an  administrative  genius  from  a 
most  tender  age ;  you  are  the  Chateaubriand  of  reports,  the 
Bossuct  of  circulars,  the  Canalis  of  memorials,  the  '  sublime 
child  '  of  the  dispatch — in  vain  !     There  is  a  disheartening 


LES  EMPLOYis.  331 

law  against  administrative  genius;  the  law  of  advancement  on 
the  average. 

"That  fatal  average  is  worked  out  from  the  tables  of  the 
law  of  promotion  and  the  tables  of  mortality.  It  is  certain 
that  if  you  enter  any  department  whatsoever  at  the  age  of 
eighteen,  you  will  not  have  a  salary  of  eighteen  hundred 
francs  till  you  are  thirty  years  old ;  if  you  are  to  get  six  thou- 
sand by  the  time  you  are  fifty,  CoUeville's  career  proves  that 
though  you  have  a  genius  for  a  wife,  and  the  support  of  vari- 
ous peers  of  France,  and  of  divers  influential  deputies  to 
boot,  it  profiteth  you  nothing.  Let  a  young  man  have  studied 
the  humanities,  let  him  be  vaccinated,  exempt  from  military 
service,  and  in  full  possession  of  his  wits;  well,  there  is  no 
free  and  independent  career  in  which,  without  a  transcendent 
intellect,  such  a  man  could  not  put  by  a  capital  of  forty-five 
thousand  francs  of  centimes  in  the  time.  That  sum  would 
bring  in  a  yearly  interest  equal  to  our  salary,  and  it  would  be 
a  perpetual  income ;  whereas  our  salaries  are  by  their  nature 
transitory,  we  have  not  even  our  berths,  such  as  they  are,  for 
life.  In  the  same  time,  a  tradesman  would  have  money  put 
out  to  interest,  and  an  independent  income  of  ten  thousand 
francs;  he  would  have  filed  his  schedule,  or  he  would  be  a 
president  of  the  Commercial  Court.  A  painter  would  have 
covered  a  square  mile  of  canvas  with  paint ;  he  would  either 
wear  the  cross  of  the  Legion  of  Honor  or  set  up  for  a  neg- 
lected genius.  A  man  of  letters  would  be  a  professor  of 
something  or  other  ;  or  a  journalist,  paid  at  the  rate  of  a 
hundred  francs  for  a  thousand  lines;  or  he  is  2ifeuilletonniste, 
or  some  fine  day  he  is  landed  in  Saint-Pelagie  for  writing  a 
luminous  pamphlet  which  displeased  the  Jesuits;  his  value 
incontinently  goes  up  tremendously,  and  the  pamphlet  makes 
a  political  personage  of  him.  Indeed,  your  idler  that  never 
did  anything  in  his  life  (for  there  are  idlers  that  do  some- 
thing and  idlers  that  do  nothing),  your  idler  has  made  debts 
and  found  a  widow  to  pay  them.     A  priest  has  had  time  to 


332  LES  EMPLOYES. 

become  a  bishop  in  partibus.  A  vaudevilliste  is  a  landed 
proprietor,  even  if,  like  du  Bruel,  he  never  wrote  a  whole 
vaudeville  by  himself.  If  a  steady,  intelligent  young  fellow 
starts  in  the  money-lending  line  with  a  very  small  capital  (like 
Mademoiselle  Thuillier,  for  instance),  he  can  buy  a  fourth  of 
a  stockbroker's  connection  in  twelve  years.  Let  us  go  lower 
down  !  A  petty  clerk  becomes  a  notary  ;  the  ragpicker  has  a 
thousand  crowns  of  independent  income;  the  workingman 
at  worst  has  managed  to  set  up  for  himself;  whereas,  in  the 
midst  of  the  rotatory  movement  of  that  civilization  which 
takes  infinite  subdivision  for  progress,  a  Chazelle  has  been  ex- 
isting on  twenty-two  sous  per  head.  He  argues  with  his  tailor 
and  shoemaker,  he  is  in  debt ;  that's  nothing — he  is  creiinized ! 
Come,  gentlemen,  one  glorious  movement ;  let  us  send  in 
our  resignations  in  a  body,  hey?  Fleury  and  Chazelle,  make 
a  plunge  into  a  new  line,  and  become  great  men  in  it ! " 

Chazelle  {calming  down  under  Bixiotis  discourse). 
"Thanks"  {general laughter). 

Bixiou.  "You  are  wrong.  In  your  position  I  would  be 
beforehand  with  the  secretary-general." 

Chazelle  {^uneasily).     "  Why,  what  has  he  to  say  to  me?  " 

Bixiou.  "  Odry  would  tell  you,  Chazelle,  with  more 
charm  in  the  manner  of  the  telling  than  des  Lupeaulx  will 
put  into  the  observation,  that  the  one  place  open  to  you  is 
the  Place  de  la  Concorde." 

Paulmier  {clasping  the  stove-pipe).  "Egad!  Baudoyer 
will  not  have  pity  on  you,  that  is  certain  !  " 

Fleury.  "  Another  thing  to  put  up  with  from  Baudoyer. 
Now,  there's  a  queer  fish  for  you  !  Talk  of  Monsieur  Rabour- 
din — there  is  a  man  !  The  work  he  put  on  my  table  to-day 
would  take  three  days  in  thi-s  office,  but  he  will  have  it  by 
four  o'clock  this  afternoon.  But  he  is  not  always  at  my  heels 
to  stop  my  chat  with  friends." 

Baudoyer  {returning).  "  Gentlemen,  if  anybody  has  a 
right  to  find  fault  with  the  parliamentary  system  or  the  proceed- 


LES  EMPLOYES.  333 

ings  of  the  administration,  you  must  admit  that  this  is  not  the 
proper  place  for  such  talk."  {To  Fleury.)  "Why  are  you 
here,  sir  ?  " 

Fleury  {insolently).  "  To  advise  these  gentlemen  of  a 
general  move  !  The  secretary-general  has  sent  for  du  Briiel ; 
Dutocq  has  gone  too.  Everybody  is  wondering  about  the 
appointment." 

Baudoyer  {returning).  "  That,  sir,  is  no  business  of  yours. 
Go  back  to  your  office,  and  do  not  upset  mine." 

Fleury  {/rom  the  doorway).  "  It  would  be  tremendously 
unfair  if  Rabourdin  were  to  be  done  out  of  it.  My  word  !  I 
would  leave  the  service."  {Comes  back.)  "Did  you  make 
out  your  anagram,  Daddy  Colleville  ?  " 

CoLLEViLLE.      "  Yes,  here  it  is." 

Fleury  {leaning over  Colleville' s  desk).  "  Famous !  famous ! 
It  will  be  sure  to  happen  if  the  Government  keeps  to  its  hypo- 
critical line."  {Gives  warning  to  the  others  that  Baudoyer  is 
listening.)  "  If  the  Government  openly  stated  its  intentions 
without  an  afterthought,  then  the  Liberals  would  see  what 
they  would  have  to  do.  But  when  a  Government  sets  its  best 
friends  against  it,  and  sends  such  men  as  Chateaubriand  and 
Royer-Collard  and  the  '  Debats  '  into  opposition,  it  makes  you 
sorry  to  see  it." 

Colleville  {after  a  look  round  at  his  fellow-clerks).  "  Look 
here,  Fleury,  you  are  a  good  fellow,  but  you  must  not  talk 
politics  here.     You  do  us  more  harm  than  you  know." 

Fleury  {drily).  "Good-day,  gentlemen.  I  will  go  to  my 
copying."  {Comes  back  and  speaks  to  Bixiou  in  an  undertone.) 
"  They  say  that  Madame  Colleville  is  making  allies  among 
the  Congregation." 

Bixiou.     "In  what  way? " 

Fleury  {breaking  into  a  laugh).  "You  are  never  to  be 
caught  napping  !  " 

Colleville  (uneasily).      "  What  are  you  saying  ?  " 

Fleury.     "  Our  theatre  took  a  thousand  crowns  yesterday 


334  LES  EMPLOYES. 

with  the  new  piece,  though  this  is  its  fortieth  representation. 
You  ought  to  come  and  see  it.  The  scenery  is  something 
superb." 

Meanwhile,  des  Lupeaulx  was  giving  du  Bruel  audience  in 
the  secretary's  rooms  ;  and   Dutocq  had  followed  du  Bruel. 
Des  Lupeaulx's  man  brought  the  news  of  M.  de  la  Billardiere's 
death,  and  the  secretary-general  intended  to  please  both  min- 
isters by  inserting  an  obituary  notice  in  that  evening's  paper. 
"Good-day,  my  dear  du  Bruel,"  was   the  semi-minister's 
greeting,  as  he  saw  the  clerk  enter,  and  left  him  to  stand. 
*'  You  know  the  news  ?     La  Billardiere  is  dead  ;  the  two  min- 
isters were  present  when   he   took  the  sacrament.     The  old 
man  strongly  recommended  Rabourdin  ;  said  that  he  could 
not  die  easy  unless  he  knew  that  his  successor  was  to  be  the 
man  who  had  filled  his  place  all  along.     It  would  seem  that 
the  death-agony  is  like  the  'question,'  and  everything  comes 
out.     The  minister  is  so  much  the  more  pledged  to  this  course 
because  it  is  his  intention,  and  the  intention  of  the  Board 
likewise,  to  reward  Monsieur  Rabourdin's  numerous  services  " 
(wagging  his  head) — "  the  Council  of  State  desires  the  benefit 
of  his  lights.     They  say  that  Monsieur  de  la  Billardiere  is  to 
be  transferred  to  the  Seals,  which  is  as  good  as  if  the  King 
had  made  him  a  present  of  a  hundred  thousand  francs— the 
place  is  like  a  notary's  connection,  and  may  be  sold.     That 
piece  of  news  will  be  received  with  joy  in  your  division,  for 
they  might   imagine   that   Benjamin  would  be  put  in  there. 
Du  Bruel,  some  one  ought  to  knock  off  ten  or  a  dozen  lines 
about  the  old  boy,  by  way  of  a  news  item.     It  will  come  under 
the  notice  of  their  excellencies. 

"Do  you  know  all  about  old  La  Billardiere?"  he  added, 
taking  up  the  papers. 

Du  Bruel  made  a  gesture  to  signify  that  he  knew  nothing. 

"  No  ?  "  returned  des  Lupeaulx.  "  Oh,  well,  he  was  mixed 
up  in  the  La  Vendee  business  ;  he  was  in  the  late  King's  con- 
fidence.    Like  Monsieur  le  Comte  de  la  Fontaine,  he  never 


LES  EMPLOYES.  335 

would  come  to  terms  with  the  First  Consul.  He  did  a  little 
in  Chouannerie.  He  was  born  in  Brittany  of  a  parliamentary 
family  ;  but  their  dignities  were  so  recent  that  he  was  ennobled 
by  Louis  XVHI.  See — how  old  was  he  now?  Never  mind. 
Just  put  it  properly  something  this  way:  'A  loyalty  that  never 
swerved,  an  enlightened  piety  ' — (the  poor  old  boy  had  a  craze 
for  never  setting  foot  in  a  church).  Give  him  out  for  a  pious 
servant  of  the  Crown.  Lead  up  nicely  to  the  remark  that  he 
might  have  sung  the  Song  of  Simeon  over  the  accession  of 
Charles  X.  The  Comte  d'Artois  had  a  great  esteem  for  him, 
for  La  Billardidre  unfortunately  cooperated  with  him  in  the 
Quiberon  affair,  and  took  all  the  blame  upon  himself;  you 
know,  of  course.  La  Billardierc  justified  the  King  in  a  pam- 
phlet which  he  wrote  to  refute  an  impertinent  History  of  the 
Revolution  gotten  up  by  some  journalist-  So  you  can  lay  stress 
on  the  devotion.  Finally,  weigh  your  words  well,  so  that  the 
other  papers  may  not  laugh  at  us,  and  bring  me  the  article. 
Were  you  at  Rabourdin's  yesterday?" 

•*  Yes,  my  lord,"  said  du  Bruel,  "that  is — I  beg  par- 
don  " 

"There  is  no  harm  done,"  des  Lupeaulx  answered,  laugh- 
ing. 

"  His  wife  is  delightfully  pretty,"  continued  du  Bruel, 
"There  are  not  two  such  women  in  Paris.  There  are  women 
as  clever,  but  they  are  not  so  charming  in  their  cleverness; 
and  there  may  be  a  woman  as  handsome  as  Celestine,  but 
scarcely  one  so  various  in  her  beauty.  Madame  Rabourdin  is 
far  superior  to  Madame  CoUeville  !  "  added  du  Bruel,  for  he 
remembered  an  old  story  about  des  Lupeaulx.  "  Flavie  is 
what  she  is,  thanks  to  her  intercourse  with  men,  while  Ma- 
dame Rabourdin  owes  everything  to  herself;  she  knows  every- 
thing ;  you  could  not  tell  a  secret  in  Latin  before  her.  I 
should  think  that  nothing  was  beyond  my  reach  if  I  had  such 
a  wife." 

"  You  have  more  brains  than  an  author's  allowance,"  re- 


336  LES  EMPLOYES. 

turned  des   Lupeaulx  in  a  thrill  of  gratified  vanity.      And, 
turning  his  head,  he  saw  Dutocq. 

"  Oh  !  good-day,  Dutocq.  I  sent  to  ask  if  you  would  lend 
me  your  Charlet,  if  it  is  complete.  The  countess  knows 
nothing  of  Charlet." 

Du  Bruel  withdrew. 

"  Why  do  you  come  when  you  are  not  called?  "  des  Lu- 
peaulx asked  in  a  hard  voice,  when  they  were  alone.  "  Why 
do  you  come  to  me  at  ten  o'clock,  just  as  I  am  about  to 
breakfast  with  his  excellency?  Is  the  Government  in 
danger?  " 

"  Perhaps,  sir.  If  I  had  had  the  honor  of  an  interview  with 
you  this  morning,  you  certainly  would  not  have  pronounced 
the  Sieur  Rabourdin's  panegyric  after  you  had  read  what  he 
has  written  of  you." 

Dutocq  unbuttoned  his  greatcoat  and  took  out  a  quire  of 
paper,  with  an  impression  on  the  side  of  the  sheets.  He  laid 
them  down  on  des  Lupeaulx's  desk  and  pointed  to  a  para- 
graph. Then  he  bolted  the  door,  as  though  he  feared  an  ex- 
plosion. This  was  what  the  secretary-general  read  against  his 
name : 

"  M.  DES  Lupeaulx. — A  Government  lowers  itself  by  em- 
ploying such  a  man  openly.  His  proper  place  is  in  the 
diplomatic  police.  Such  a  person  may  be  pitted  with  success 
against  the  political  buccaneers  of  other  cabinets.  It  would 
be  a  pity  to  put  him  into  the  ordinary  police.  He  stands 
above  the  level  of  the  common  spy  ;  he  can  grasp  a  scheme, 
he  could  carry  out  a  necessary  bit  of  dirty  work  successfully, 
and  cover  his  retreat  with  skill,"  and  so  forth  and  so  forth. 
Des  Lupeaulx's  character  was  succinctly  analyzed  in  five  or 
six  sentences.  Rabourdin  gave  the  gist  of  the  biographical 
sketch  at  the  beginning  of  this  history. 

At  the  first  words  the  secretary-general  knew  that  he  had 
been  weighed  and  found  wanting  by  an  abler  man  ;  but  he 
determined  to  reserve  himself  for  a  further  examination  into 


LES  EMPLOYES.  337 

a  piece  of  work  which  went  both  high  and  far,  without  admit- 
ting such  a  man  as  Dutocq  into  his  confidence.  The  secre- 
tary-general, like  barristers,  magistrates,  diplomatists,  and 
others,  was  obliged  to  explore  the  human  heart ;  like  them, 
too,  he  was  astonished  at  nothing.  He  was  accustomed  to 
treachery,  to  the  snares  set  by  hate,  to  traps  of  all  kinds. 
He  could  receive  a  stab  in  the  back  without  a  change  of 
countenance.  So  it  was  a  calm  and  grave  face  that  des 
Lupeaulx  turned  upon  the  otfice  spy. 

"  How  did  you  get  hold  of  this  document?  "  he  asked. 

Dutocq  gave  the  history  of  his  good  luck ;  but  dcs  Lu- 
peaulx's  face  showed  no  sign  of  approval  while  he  listened. 
Consequently  the  story  begun  in  high  triumph  was  ended  in 
fear  and  trembling. 

"You  have  put  your  finger  between  the  tree  and  the  bark, 
Dutocq,"  was  the  secretary-general's  dry  comment.  "  Observe 
the  utmost  secrecy  as  to  this  affair,  unless  you  want  to  make 
very  powerful  enemies ;  it  is  a  work  of  the  greatest  import- 
ance, and  I  have  cognizance  of  it." 

And  des  Lupeaulx  dismissed  Dutocq  with  a  glance  of  that 
kind  which  speaks  more  than  words. 

Dutocq  was  dismayed  to  find  a  rival  in  his  chief.  "  Aha  !  " 
he  said  to  himself,  "so  that  scoundrel  of  a  Rabourdin  is  in  it 
too.  He  is  a  staflF-officer,  while  I  am  a  private  soldier.  I 
would  not  have  believed  it." 

So  to  all  his  previous  motives  for  detesting  Rabourdin  was 
added  another  and  most  cogent  reason  for  hate — the  jealousy 
that  one  workman  feels  of  another  in  the  same  trade. 

When  des  Lupeaulx  was  left  alone  his  meditations  took  a 
singular  turn.  Rabourdin  was  an  instrument  in  the  hands  of 
some  power;  what  power  was  it?  Should  he  profit  by  this 
surprising  document  to  ruin  the  man  ?  Or  should  he  use  it 
the  better  to  succeed  with  the  man's  wife  ?  The  mystery  was 
perfectly  obscure.  Des  Lupeaulx  turned  the  pages  in  dismay. 
The  men  whom  he  knew  were  summed  up  with  unheard-of 
22 


338  LES  EMPLOYES. 

sagacity.     He  admired  Rabourdin,  while  he  felt  the  stab  to 
the  heart.     He  was  still  reading  when  breakfast  was  announced. 

"You  will  keep  his  excellency  waiting  if  you  do  not  go 
down  at  once,"  the  minister's  footman  came  to  say. 

The  minister  breakfasted  with  his  wife  and  children  and  des 
Lupeaulx.  There  were  no  servants  in  the  room.  The  morn- 
ing meal  is  the  one  moment  of  home  life  that  a  statesman  can 
snatch  from  the  all-absorbing  demands  of  public  business ; 
but  in  spite  of  the  barriers  raised  with  ingenious  care,  so  that 
one  hour  may  be  given  up  entirely  to  the  family  and  the  affec- 
tions, many  intruders,  great  and  small,  find  ways  of  breaking 
in  upon  it.  Public  business,  as  at  this  moment,  often  comes 
athwart  their  enjoyment. 

"I  thought  Rabourdin  was  above  the  ordinary  level  of 
clerks  ;  and  lo  and  behold  !  ten  minutes  after  La  Billardiere's 
death,  he  takes  it  into  his  head  to  send  me  a  regular  stage 
billet  through  La  Bridre,"  said  the  minister,  and  he  held  out 
the  sheet  of  paper  which  he  was  twisting  in  his  fingers. 

Rabourdin  had  written  the  note  before  he  heard  of  M.  de  la 
Billardiere's  death  through  La  Bridre ;  he  was  too  noble- 
minded  to  think  of  the  base  construction  that  might  be  put 
upon  it,  and  allowed  La  Bridre  to  retain  and  deliver  the 
missive. 

Des  Lupeaulx  read  as  follows : 

"  MoNSEiGNEUR  : — If  twenty-three  years  of  irreproachable 
service  may  merit  a  favor,  I  entreat  your  excellency  to  grant 
me  an  audience  this  very  day.  It  is  a  matter  in  which  my 
honor  is  involved,"  and  the  note  ended  with  the  usual  re- 
spectful formulas. 

"  Poor  man  !  "  said  des  Lupeaulx,  in  a  pitying  tone,  which 
left  the  minister  still  under  a  misapprehension  ;  "we  are  by 
ourselves,  let  him  come.  You  go  to  the  Council  after  the 
House  rises,  and  your  excellency  is  bound  to  give  an  answer 


LES  EMPLOYES.  339 

to  the  Opposition  to-day  ;  this  is  the  only  time  that  you  can 
give  him " 

Des  Lupeaulx  rose,  sent  for  the  usher,  said  a  word  to  him, 
and  came  back  to  the  table. 

"  I  am  adjourning  him  to  the  dessert,"  said  he. 

His  excellency,  like  most  other  ministers  under  the  Resto- 
ration, was  past  his  youth.  The  Charter  granted  by  Louis 
XVIII.,  unluckily,  tied  the  King's  hands;  he  was  forced  to 
give  the  destinies  of  the  country  over  to  quadragenarians  of 
the  Chamber  of  Deputies  and  peers  of  seventy.  A  king  had 
not  power  to  look  wheresoever  he  would  for  an  able  political 
leader,  and  to  put  him  forward  in  spite  of  his  youth  or  pov- 
erty. Napoleon,  and  Napoleon  alone,  might  employ  young 
men  if  he  chose  ;  no  considerations  led  him  to  pause.  And  so 
it  fell  out  that  since  the  fall  of  that  mighty  Will,  energy  had 
deserted  authority.  And  in  France,  of  all  countries  in  the 
world,  the  contrast  between  slackness  and  vigor  is  a  dangerous 
one.  As  a  rule,  the  minister  who  comes  into  power  late  in 
life,  is  a  mediocrity ;  while  young  ministers  have  been  the 
glory  of  European  kingdoms  and  Republics.  The  world  is 
ringing  yet  with  the  contest  between  Pitt  and  Napoleon  ;  and 
they,  like  Henri  IV.,  like  Richelieu,  Mazarin,  Colbert,  Lou- 
vois,  the  Prince  of  Orange,  the  Due  de  Guise,  Francesco  della 
Rovere,  and  Machiavelli,  like  all  great  statesmen,  in  short, 
whether  they  come  of  low  orgin  or  are  born  to  a  throne,  began 
to  govern  at  an  early  age.  The  Convention,  that  model  of 
energy,  was  in  great  part  composed  of  young  heads ;  and  no 
sovereign  can  afford  to  forget  that  the  Convention  brought 
fourteen  armies  into  the  field  against  Europe ;  the  policy  that 
brought  about  such  disastrous  results  for  absolute  power  (as  it 
is  called)  was  none  the  less  dictated  by  true  monarchical  prin- 
ciples, and  the  Convention  bore  itself  as  a  great  king. 

After  ten  or  twelve  years  of  parliamentary  strife,  after  going 
again  and  again  over  the  same  ground  till  he  grew  jaded,  this 
particular  minister  had  been,  in  truth,  put  in  office  by  a  party 


340  LES  EMPLOYES. 

which  regarded  him  as  its  man  of  business.  Fortunately  for 
him,  he  was  nearer  sixty  than  fifty  years  old  ;  if  he  had  shown 
any  signs  of  youthful  energy,  he  would  have  come  promptly 
to  grief.  But  being  accustomed  to  give  way,  to  beat  a  re- 
treat, and  return  to  the  charge,  he  could  stand  against  the 
blows  dealt  him  by  all  and  sundry,  by  the  Opposition  or  by 
his  own  side,  by  the  Court  or  the  clergy ;  opposing  to  it  all 
the  vis  inertice.  of  a  soft  but  unyielding  substance.  In  short, 
he  enjoyed  the  advantages  of  his  misfortune.  Like  some  old 
barrister  that  has  pleaded  every  conceivable  cause,  he  had 
passed  through  the  fire  on  countless  questions  of  Government, 
till  his  mind  no  longer  retained  the  keen  edge  preserved  by 
the  solitary  thinker ;  and  he  lacked  that  faculty  of  making 
prompt  decisions,  which  is  acquired  early  in  a  life  of  action, 
and  more  especially  in  a  military  career.  How  should  he 
have  been  other  than  he  was  ?  All  his  life  long  he  had  jug- 
gled with  questions  instead  of  using  his  own  judgment  upon 
them;  he  had  criticised  effects  without  going  into  the  causes; 
and  beside,  and  above  all  this,  his  head  was  full  of  the  endless 
reforms  which  a  party  thrusts  upon  its  leader  ;  he  was  burdened 
with  programmes  designed  to  gain  the  private  ends  of  various 
personages ;  for  if  an  orator  has  a  future  before  him,  he  is  sure 
to  be  embarrassed  with  all  kinds  of  impracticable  schemes  and 
unpractical  advice.  So  far  from  starting  fresh,  the  minister 
was  jaded  and  tired  with  marches  and  counter-marches.  And 
when  at  last  he  reached  the  long-desired  heights,  he  found  his 
paths  beset  with  thorns  on  every  side,  and  a  thousand  contrary 
dispositions  to  be  reconciled.  If  the  statesmen  of  the  Resto- 
ration could  but  have  followed  out  their  own  ideas,  their 
capacities  would  no  doubt  be  less  exposed  to  criticism ;  but 
while  their  wills  were  overruled,  their  age  was  the  salvation 
of  them ;  they  were  physically  incapable  of  contending,  as 
younger  men  would  have  done,  with  low  intrigue  in  high 
places,  intrigues  which  sometimes  proved  too  much  even  for 
the  strength  of  a  Richelieu.    To  such  knavery  in  a  lower 


LES  EMPLOYES.  341 

sphere  Rabourdin  was  about  to  fall  a  victim.  To  the  throes 
of  early  struggles  succeeded  the  throes  of  office,  for  men  not 
so  much  old  as  aged  before  the  time.  And  so,  just  as  they 
needed  the  keen  sight  of  the  eagle,  their  eyes  were  growing 
dim ;  and  their  faculties  were  exhausted  when  their  work 
called  for  redoubled  vigor. 

The  minister  to  whom  Rabourdin  meant  to  confide  his 
scheme  was  accustomed  to  hear  the  most  ingenious  theories 
propounded  to  him  daily  by  men  of  unquestioned  ability ; 
schemes  more  or  less  applicable,  or  inapplicable,  to  public 
business  in  France  were  brought  continually  before  his  eyes. 
Their  promoters  had  not  the  remotest  conception  of  the  diffi- 
culties of  general  policy;  they  used  to  waylay  the  minister 
on  his  return  from  a  pitched  battle  in  the  House,  or  a  struggle 
with  folly  behind  the  scenes  at  Court ;  they  assailed  him  on 
the  eve  of  a  wrestling-bout  with  public  opinion,  or  on  the 
morrow  of  some  diplomatic  question  on  which  the  Cabinet 
had  split  in  three.  A  statesman  thus  situated  naturally  has  a 
gag  ready  to  apply  at  the  first  hint  of  an  improvement  in  the 
established  order  of  things.  Daring  speculators  and  men  from 
behind  the  scenes  in  politics  or  finance  were  not  wont  to  meet 
round  a  dinner-table  in  those  days  to  sum  up  the  opinions  of 
the  Stock  Exchange  and  the  Money  Market,  together  with 
some  utterance  let  fall  by  Dii)lomacy,  in  one  profound  saying. 
The  minister  had,  however,  a  sort  of  privy  council  in  his 
privy  secretary  and  secretary-general ;  they  chewed  the  cud 
of  reflection,  and  controlled  and  analyzed  the  interests  that 
spoke  through  so  many  insinuating  voices. 

It  was  the  minister's  unfortunate  habit  (the  invariable  habit 
of  sexagenarian  ministers)  to  shiifile  out  of  difficulties.  No 
question  was  fairly  faced  ;  the  Government  was  quietly  try- 
ing to  gag  journalism  instead  of  striking  openly  ;  it  was 
evading  the  financial  question  ;  temporizing  with  the  clergy 
as  with  the  National  Property  difficulty,  with  Liberalism  as 
with  the  control  of  the  Chamber.     Now  as  the  minister  in 


342  LES  EMPLOYES. 

seven  years  had  outflanked  the  powers  that  be,  he  considered 
that  he  could  come  round  every  question  in  the  same  way. 
It  was  natural  that  a  man  should  try  to  keep  his  position  by 
continuing  to  use  the  methods  by  which  he  rose  ;  so  natural, 
that  nobody  ventured  to  criticise  a  system  devised  by  medi- 
ocrity to  please  mediocrity.  The  Restoration  (like  the  revol- 
ution in  Poland)  clearly  showed  how  much  a  great  man  is 
worth  to  a  nation,  and  what  happens  if  he  is  not  forthcoming. 
The  last  and  greatest  defect  of  the  Restoration  statesmen  was 
their  honesty,  for  their  opponents  availed  themselves  of  slan- 
der and  lies  and  all  the  resources  of  political  rascality,  until, 
by  the  most  subversi/e  methods,  they  let  loose  the  unintelli- 
gent masses  ;  and  the  large  body  of  the  people  are  quick  to 
grasp  but  one  idea — the  idea  of  riot. 

All  this  Rabourdin  had  told  himself.  Still,  he  had  decided 
to  hazard  all  to  win  all,  much  as  a  jaded  gamester  agrees  with 
himself  to  try  but  one  more  throw  ;  and  fate,  meanwhile, 
sent  him  a  trickster  for  his  opponent  in  the  shape  of  des  Lu- 
peaulx.  And  yet,  however  sagacious  Rabourdin  might  be,  he 
was  better  skilled  in  administrative  work  than  in  parliamentary 
perspective.  He  did  not  imagine  the  whole  truth ;  it  had  not 
occurred  to  him  that  the  great  practical  work  of  his  life  was 
about  to  become  a  theory  for  the  minister,  or  that  a  statesman 
would  inevitably  class  him  with  after-dinner  innovators  and 
armchair  reformers. 

His  excellency  had  just  risen  from  the  table.  He  was 
thinking  not  of  Rabourdin,  but  of  Francois  Keller.  His  wife 
detained  him  by  offering  him  a  bunch  of  grapes,  when  the 
chief  clerk  was  announced.  Des  Lupeaulx  had  reckoned 
upon  this  preoccupied  mood  ;  he  knew  that  his  excellency's 
mind  would  be  taken  up  by  his  "extempore"  speeches;  so, 
seeing  that  the  minister  was  engaged  in  a  discussion  with  his 
wife,  the  secretary-general  came  forward.  Rabourdin  was 
thunderstruck  by  the  first  words. 

"  We,  his  excellency  and  I,  have  been  informed  of  the 


LES  EMPLOYES.  34S 

work  in  which  you  are  engaged,"  said  des  Lupeaulx,  lowering 
his  voice;  "you  have  nothing  to  fear  from  Dutocq,  or  from 
any  one  whatever,"  he  added,  speaking  the  last  few  words 
aloud. 

"Do  not  worry  yourself  in  any  way,  Rabourdin,"  his  ex- 
cellency said  kindly,  but  he  made  as  though  he  would  re- 
treat, 

Rabourdin  came  forward  respectfully,  and  the  minister  could 
not  choose  but  remain. 

"  Will  your  excellency  condescend  to  permit  me  to  say 
a  few  words  in  private?"  said  Rabourdin,  with  a  significant 
glance. 

The  minister  looked  at  the  clock,  then  he  went  toward  a 
window,  and  Rabourdin  followed  him. 

"When  may  I  have  the  honor  of  submitting  the  affair  to 
your  excellency,  so  that  I  may  explain  the  scheme  of  ad- 
ministration to  which  that  paper  relates  !  It  is  sure  to  be 
used  to  sully " 

"A  scheme  of  administration,"  the  minister  broke  in,  knit- 
ting his  brows  as  he  spoke.  "If  you  have  anything  of  the 
kind  to  lay  before  me,  wait  till  the  day  when  we  work  to- 
gether. I  have  to  attend  the  Council  to-day,  and  I  must  make 
a  reply  to  a  question  raised  by  the  Opposition  yesterday  just 
before  the  House  rose.  Next  Friday  is  your  day ;  we  did  no 
work  yesterday,  for  I  had  no  time  to  attend  to  the  business  of 
the  department.  Political  affairs  stood  in  the  way  of  purely 
administrative  business." 

"  I  leave  my  honor  with  confidence  in  your  excellency's 
hands,"  Rabourdin  answered  gravely,  "and  I  beg  of  you  to 
remember  that  I  was  not  permitted  to  offer  an  explanation  of 
the  missing  document  at  once " 

"Why,  you  need  fear  nothing,"  broke  in  des  Lupeaulx,  as 
he  came  between  them  ;  "  you  are  sure  of  your  nomination  in 
a  week's  time " 

The  minister  began  to  laugh ;  he  remembered  des  Lupeaulx's 


344  LES  EMPLOYES. 

enthusiasm  over  Mme.  Rabourdin,  and  lookea  slyly  at  his 
wife.  The  countess  smiled.  This  by-play  surprised  Rabour- 
din ;  he  wondered  what  it  meant ;  for  a  moment  he  ceased  to 
hold  the  minister  with  his  eye,  and  his  excellency  took  the 
opportunity  of  escape. 

"We  will  have  a  chat  together  over  all  this,"  said  des 
Lupeaulx,  when  Rabourdin,  not  without  bewilderment,  found 
himself  alone  with  the  secretary-general.  "But  do  not  bear 
malice  against  Dutocq;  I  will  answer  for  him." 

"Madame  Rabourdin  is  a  charming  woman,"  put  in  the 
countess,  for  the  sake  of  saying  something. 

The  children  gazed  curiously  at  the  visitor.  Rabourdin 
had  been  prepared  for  a  great  ordeal ;  now  he  felt  as  if  he 
were  a  big  fish  taken  in  the  toils  of  a  fine  net.  He  struggled 
with  himself. 

"  Madame  la  Comtesse  is  very  kind,"  he  said. 

"  May  I  not  have  the  pleasure  of  seeing  you  on  one  of  my 
Fridays?"  continued  the  lady;  "  bring  your  wife  to  us,  you 
will  do  me  a  favor " 

"That  is  Madame  Rabourdin's  night,"  put  in  des  Lu- 
peaulx, knowing  what  official  Fridays  were  like ;  "  but  since 
you  are  so  good,  you  are  giving  a  small  evening  party  soon, 
I  believe " 

The  minister's  wife  seemed  annoyed. 

"You  are  the  master  of  the  ceremonies,"  she  said,  address- 
ing des  Lupeaulx  as  she  rose. 

In  those  ambiguous  words  she  expressed  her  vexation  ;  des 
Lupeaulx  was  intruding  guests  upon  one  of  her  small  parties, 
to  which  none  but  a  select  few  were  admitted.  Then,  with  a 
curtsey  to  Rabourdin,  she  went,  and  des  Lupeaulx  and  the  chief 
clerk  were  left  alone  in  the  little  breakfast-room.  Des  Lu- 
peaulx was  crumpling  a  bit  of  paper  between  his  fingers ; 
Rabourdin  recognized  his  own  confidential  note. 

"You  do  not  really  know  me,"  the  secretary-general  began 
^ith  a  smile.     "  On  Friday  evening  we  will  come  to  a  thor- 


LES  EMFLOYAS.  345 

ough  understanding.  I  am  bound  to  give  audience  now  ;  the 
minister  is  putting  everything  on  my  shoulders  to-day,  for  he 
is  preparing  for  the  Chamber.  But,  Rabourdin,  you  have 
nothing  to  fear,  I  repeat." 

Slowly  Rabourdin  made  his  way  downstairs.  He  was  be- 
wildered by  the  unexpected  turn  that  things  were  taking.  He 
believed  that  Dutocq  had  denounced  him  ;  he  was  not  mis- 
taken ;  the  list  in  which  des  Lupeaulx  was  so  severely  criti- 
cised was  now  in  the  hands  of  that  worthy,  and  yet  des 
Lupeaulx  was  flattering  his  judge.  It  was  hopelessly  bewilder- 
ing. Straightforward  people  find  it  hard  to  see  their  way 
through  a  maze  of  intrigue,  and  Rabourdin  lost  himself  in  a 
labyrinth  of  conjecture,  but  failed  to  understand  the  secretary- 
general's  game. 

"  Either  he  has  not  read  the  article  upon  himself  or  he  is 
in  love  with  my  wife  !  " 

These  were  the  thoughts  that  brought  him  to  a  stand  as  he 
crossed  the  courtyard  ;  and  the  glance  exchanged  between 
Celestine  and  des  Lupeaulx,  and  intercepted  last  night,  flashed 
like  lightning  upon  his  memory. 

During  Rabourdin's  absence  his  ofiice  had,  of  course,  suf- 
fered from  a  sudden  accession  of  vehement  excitement ;  the 
relations  between  the  upper  powers  and  subordinates  are  very 
much  laid  down  by  rule  ;  and  great,  therefore,  was  the  com- 
ment when  an  usher  appeared  from  his  excellency  to  ask  for 
the  chief  clerk,  especially  as  he  came  at  an  hour  when  minis- 
ters are  invisible.  As  this  extraordinary  communication  coin- 
cided, moreover,  with  the  death  of  M.  de  la  Billardiere,  it 
seemed  peculiarly  significant  to  M.  Saillard  when  he  heard  of 
it  through  M.  Clergeot.  He  went  to  confer  with  his  son-in- 
law.  Bixiou  happened  to  be  working  with  liis  chief  at  the 
time ;  he  left  Baudoyer  with  his  relative  and  betook  himself 
to  the  Rabourdins. 

Work  was  suspended. 

'&iyiiO\5  (coming  in.)     "You  are  taking  things  coolly  here^ 


346  LES  EMPLOYES. 

gentlemen  !  You  don't  know  what  is  going  on  downstairs. 
La  Vertueuse  Raboiirdin  is  in  for  it ;  yes,  cashiered  !  A 
painful  scene  with  the  minister." 

DuTOCQ  {looking  at  Bixiou).     "  Is  that  a  fact  ?  " 

Bixiou.  "  Who  will  be  any  the  worse  ?  Not  you  for  one ; 
du  Bruel  will  be  chief  clerk,  and  you  his  assistant.  Monsieur 
Baudoyer  will  be  head  of  the  division." 

Fleury.  "  I'll  bet  a  hundred  francs  that  Baudoyer  will 
never  be  head  of  the  division." 

ViMEUX.  "Will  you  join  us.  Monsieur  Poiret,  and  take 
the  bet?" 

Poiret.      "I  get  my  pension  on  the  ist  of  January." 

Bixiou.  "What,  shall  we  never  more  behold  your  shoe- 
laces !  What  will  the  department  do  without  you  ?  Who 
will  take  my  bet? " 

DuTOCQ.  "  Not  I ;  I  should  be  betting  on  a  certainty. 
Monsieur  Rabourdin  is  nominated.  Monsieur  de  la  Billar- 
diere  on  his  death-bed  recommended  him  to  the  two  ministers, 
and  said  that  he  had  drawn  the  pay  while  Rabourdin  did  all 
the  work.  He  had  scruples  of  conscience  :  so,  subject  to 
orders  from  above,  they  promised  to  nominate  Rabourdin  to 
ease  his  mind." 

Bixiou.  "Gentlemen,  all  of  you  take  my  wager;  there 
are  seven  of  you,  for  you  will  be  one,  Monsieur  Phellion.  I 
bet  you  a  dinner  of  five  hundred  francs  at  the  Rocher  de 
Cancale  that  Rabourdin  will  not  get  La  Billardidrc's  place. 
It  won't  cost  you  a  hundred  francs  apiece,  whereas  I  risk  five 
hundred.  I'll  take  you  single-handed,  in  short.  Does  that 
suit?     Will  you  go  in,  du  Bruel?" 

Phellion  (flaying  down  his  pen).  "  On  what,  m6sieur, 
does  your  contingent  proposition  depend?  for  contingent  it 
is;  but  I  err  in  using  the  word  'proposition,'  I  mean  to  say 
'contract.'     A  wager  constitutes  a  contract." 

Fleury.  "  No,  you  can't  call  it  a  contract,  the  Code  does 
not  recognize  a  wager;  you  can't  take  action  to  enforce  it." 


LES  EMPLOYES.  347 

DuTOCQ.  "The  Code  recognizes  it  if  it  makes  provision 
against  it." 

Bixiou.     "Well  put,  Dutocq,  my  boy." 

PoiRET.     "Indeed  !  " 

Fleury.  "That  is  right.  It  is  as  if  you  refuse  to  pay 
your  debts,  you  admit  them." 

Thuillier.     "  Famous  jurisconsults  you  would  make  !  " 

PoiRET.  '"lam  as  curious  as  Monsieur  Phellion  to  know 
what  Monsieur  Bixiou's  bet  is  about " 

Bixiou  {shouts  across  the  office).  "  Du  Bruel !  are  you 
going  in  ?  " 

Du  Bruel  {showing  himself).  "  Fiddle-de-dee  !  gentle- 
men, I  have  something  difficult  to  do ;  I  have  to  draw  up 
the  announcement  of  Monsieur  de  la  Billardiere's  death.  For 
mercy's  sake,  a  little  quiet  j  you  had  better  laugh  and  bet 
afterward." 

ThuillIer.  "Better  bet!  your  are  infringing  on  my 
puns." 

Bixiou  {going  into  du  BrueV s  office).  "The  old  boy's 
panegyric  is  a  very  hard  thing  to  write,  du  Bruel,  and  that  is 
a  fact ;  I  would  sooner  have  made  a  caricature  of  him." 

Du  Bruel.     "  Do  help  me,  Bixiou." 

Bixiou.  "I  am  quite  willing,  though  this  sort  of  thing  is 
easier  to  do  after  dinner." 

Du  Bruel.  "We  will  dine  together."  {Reads.)  "'Every 
day  religion  and  the  Monarchy  lose  some  one  of  those  who 
fought  for  them  in  the  time  of  the  Revolution '  " 


'to' 


Bixiou.  "  Bad.  I  should  put — '  Death  is  particularly  busy 
among  the  oldest  champions  of  the  Monarchy  and  the  most 
faithful  servants  of  a  King,  whose  heart  bleeds  at  each  fresh 
blow.'  "  {Du  Bruel  writes  hastily.)  "  '  Monsieur  le  Baron 
Flamet  de  la  Billardiere  died  this  morning  of  dropsy  on  the 

chest,  brought  on  by  heart  complaint '     You  see,  it  is  of 

some  consequence  to  prove  that  a  man  in  a  government  office 
has  a  heart;  you   might  slip  in  a  little  padding  about  the 


S48  LES  EMPLOYES. 

emotions  of  Royalists  during  the  Terror,  eh  ?  It  would  not 
be  amiss.  Yet — no.  The  minor  newspapers  would  be  saying 
that  the  emotion  struck  not  the  heart,  but  regions  lower 
down.     We  won't  mention  it.     What  have  you  put ? " 

Du  Bruel  {reads).  "*A  scion  of  an  old  parliamentary 
stock '  " 

Bixiou.  "Very  good!  That  is  poetical,  and  stock  is 
profoundly  true." 

Du  Bruel  {continues').  "  ' — in  whom  devotion  to  the 
throne,  no  less  than  attachment  to  the  faith  of  our  fathers, 
was  handed  down  from  generation  to  generation  ;  Monsieur 
de  la  BiUardierc '" 

Bixiou.      "  1  should  put  '  Monsieur  le  Baron.'  " 

Du  Bruel.      "  But  he  wasn't  a  baron  in  1793." 

Bixiou.  "It  is  all  one.  Don't  you  know  that  Fouch^,  in 
the  time  of  the  Empire,  was  once  telling  an  anecdote  of  the 
Convention  and  Robespierre;  and  in  the  course  of  it  he  said: 
'Robespierre  said  to  me,  ^^  Due  (f  Otrante,  go  to  the  Hotel 
de  Ville  "  ' — so  there  is  a  precedent." 

Du  Bruel.  "  Just  let  me  jot  that  down  !  But  we  must  not 
put  '  the  baron  '  here ;  I  am  keeping  all  the  favors  the  King 
showered  upon  him  for  the  end." 

Bixiou.  "  Ah  !  right — it  is  the  dramatic  effect,  the  curtain 
picture  of  the  article." 

Du  Bruel.  "It  comes  here,  do  you  see?  'By  raising 
Monsieur  de  la  Billardiere  to  the  rank  of  baron,  by  appoint- 
ing him  gentleman  in  ordinary '  " 

Bixiou  {aside).     "  Very  ordinary." 

Du  Bruel.  "  ' — of  the  bedchamber,  etc.,  his  majesty  re- 
warded the  services  of  the  provost  who  tempered  a  rigorous 
performance  of  his  duty  with  the  habitual  mildness  of  the 
Bourbons,  and  the  courage  of  a  Vendean  who  did  not  bow  the 
knee  to  the  Imperial  idol.  Monsieur  de  la  Billardiere  leaves  a 
son  who  inherits  his  devotion  and  his  talents,'  and  so  on  and 


so  on." 


LES  EMPLOYES.  349 

Bixiou.  "Aren't  you  coming  it  rather  too  strong?  Isn't 
the  coloring  too  rich  ?  There  is  that  poetical  flight  '  the  Im- 
perial idol  '  and  '  bowing  the  knee  ;  '  I  should  tone  it  down  a 
bit.  Hang  it  all !  Vaudevilles  spoil  your  hand,  till  you  can- 
not write  pedestrian  prose.  /  should  put — '  He  belonged  to 
the  small  number  of  those  who,'  etc.  Simplify  ;  you  have  a 
simpleton  to  deal  with." 

Du  Bruel.  "There  is  another  joke  for  a  vaudeville. 
You  would  make  your  fortune  at  writing  for  the  stage, 
Bixiou!" 

Bixiou.  "  What  have  you  put  about  Quiberon  !  "  (Reads.') 
"That  is  not  the  thing  !  This  is  how  I  should  draft  it — 'In 
a  work  recently  published,  he  took  all  the  responsibility  of  the 
misfortunes  of  the  Quiberon  expedition  upon  himself,  thus 
givin?  the  measure  of  a  devotion  which  shrank  from  no  sacri- 
fice.'  That  is  neat  and  ingenious,  and  you  save  La  Billar- 
diere's  character." 

Du  Bruel.     "But  at  the  expense  of  whom  ?  " 

Bixiou  {serious  as  a  priest  in  a  pulpif).  "  Of  Hoche  and 
Tallien,  of  course.     Why,  don't  you  know  your  history?" 

Du  Bruel.  "No.  I  have  subscribed  to  the  Baudoins' 
collection,  but  I  have  not  had  time  to  look  into  it :  there  are 
no  subjects  for  vaudevilles." 

Phellion  (iti  the  doorway).  "  Monsieur  Bixiou,  we  should 
all  like  to  know  what  it  is  that  can  induce  you  to  believe  that 
Monsieur  Rabourdin  will  not  be  nominated  as  head  of  the 
division,  when  the  virtuous  and  worthy  Monsieur  Rabourdin 
has  taken  the  responsibility  of  the  division  for  nine  months, 
and  stands  first  in  order  of  seniority  in  the  department ;  and 
the  minister  no  sooner  comes  back  from  Monsieur  de  la  Bil- 
lardiere's  than  he  sends  the  usher  to  fetch  him." 

Bixiou.     "  Daddy  Phellion,  do  you  know  geography?  " 

VuKiAAOti  {swelling visilfiy).     "So  I  flatter  myself,  sir." 

Bixiou.     "  History?" 

Phellion  {modestly).     "Perhaps." 


360  LES  EMPLOYES. 

Bixiou  {looking  at  him).  "  Your  diamond  is  not  properly- 
set ;  it  will  drop  out  directly.  Well,  you  know  nothing  of 
human  nature  ;  you  have  gone  no  further  in  that  study  than 
in  your  explorations  of  the  suburbs  of  Paris." 

PoiRET  (Jn  a  low  voice  to  Vimeux).  "  Suburbs  of  Paris  !  I 
thought  that  we  were  talking  about  Monsieur  Rabourdin." 

Bixiou.  "  Does  Rabourdin's  office  in  a  body  take  my 
bet?" 

Omnes.     ''Yes." 

Bixiou.     "  Du  Bruel,  are  you  going  in  ?  " 

Du  Bruel.  "  I  should  think  so  !  It  is  to  our  interest  that 
our  chief  clerk  should  be  head  of  the  division,  for  all  the  rest 
of  us  go  up  a  step." 

Thuillier.  "We  2\\  go  a-head  !^^  {Aside  to  Phellion.') 
"  That  was  neat." 

Bixiou.  "I  bet  he  won't,  and  for  this  reason.  You  will 
hardly  understand  it ;  but  I  will  tell  you  why,  all  the  same. 
It  is  right  and  fair  that  Monsieur  Rabourdin  should  get  the 
appointment  {looks  at  Dutocq) ;  for  seniority,  ability,  and 
probity  are  recognized,  appreciated,  and  rewarded  in  his  per- 
son. Beside,  it  is,  of  course,  to  the  interest  of  the  adminis- 
tration to  appoint  him,"  {Phellion,  Foiret,  and  Thuillier, 
listening  without  comprehending  a  word,  look  as  though  they 
were  trying  to  see  through  darkness.)  "Well,  because  the 
appointment  is  deserved  and  so  suitable  in  all  these  ways,  I 
(knowing  all  the  while  how  wise  and  just  the  measure  is)  will 
bet  that  it  will  not  be  taken.  No ;  it  will  end  in  failure,  like 
the  Boulogne  and  Russian  expeditions,  though  genius  had  left 
nothing  undone  to  insure  success.  I  am  playing  the  devil's 
game." 

Du  Bruel.     "  But  whom  else  can  they  appoint  ?  " 
Bixiou.     "  The  more  I  think  of  Baudoyer,  the  more  plainly 
it  appears  that  in  the  matter  of  qualifications  for  the  post  he  is 
the  exact  opposite  of  Rabourdin.     Consequently,  he  will  be 
head  of  the  division." 


LES  EMPLOYES.  351 

DuTOCQ  {driven  to  extremities).  "But  Monsieur  des  Lu- 
peaulx  sent  for  me  this  morning  to  ask  for  my  Charlet ;  and 
he  told  me  that  Monsieur  Rabourdin  had  just  been  nominated, 
and  young  La  Billardiere  was  to  be  transferred  to  the  Audit 
Office." 

Bixiou.  "Appointed  !  appointed  !  The  nomination  will 
not  be  so  much  as  signed  for  ten  days  to  come.  They  will 
make  the  appointment  for  New  Year's  Day.  There,  look  at 
your  chief  down  there  in  the  courtyard,  and  tell  me  if  La 
Veriueuse  Rabourdin  looks  like  a  man  in  favor  !  Any  one 
would  think  he  had  been  cashiered."  {Fleury  rushes  to  the 
window.')  "  Good-day,  gentlemen.  I  am  just  going  to  an- 
nounce the  nomination  to  Monsieur  Baudoyer  ;  it  will  infuriate 
him,  at  any  rate,  the  holy  man  !  And  then  I  will  tell  him 
about  our  bet,  to  hearten  him  up  again.  That  is  what  we  call 
a  peripateia  on  the  stage,  is  it  not,  du  Bruel  ?  What  does  it 
matter  to  me  ?  If  I  win,  he  will  surely  take  me  for  assistant 
clerk  ?  ' '   {goes  out. ) 

PoiRET.  '•' Everybody  says  that  that  gentleman  is  clever ; 
well,  for  my  own  part,  I  never  can  make  anything  out  of  his 
talk"  {writing  as  he  speaks).  "I  listen  and  listen,  I  hear 
words,  and  cannot  grasp  any  sense  in  them.  He  brings  in 
the  suburbs  of  Paris  when  he  is  talking  about  human  nature ; 
then  he  begins  with  the  Boulogne  and  Russian  expeditions, 
and  says  that  he  is  playing  the  devil's  game."  {Lays  down 
his  pen  and  goes  to  the  stove.)  "  First  of  all,  you  must  assume 
that  the  devil  gambles,  then   find  out   what  game  he  plays  ! 

First  of  all,  there  is  the  game  of  dominoes "  {blows  his 

nose. ) 

Fleury  {interrupting  him).  "  Old  Poiret  is  blowing  his 
nose;  it  is  eleven  o'clock." 

Du  Bruel.  "  So  it  is !  Already  !  I  am  off  to  the  secre- 
tary's office." 

Poiret.      "  Where  was  I  ?  " 

Thuillif.r.      "Domino,  which   is   'to  the  Lord?'   for   you 


352  LES  EMPLOYES. 

were  talking  of  the  devil,  and  the  devil  is  a  suzerain  without 
a  charter.  But  this  is  not  so  much  a  pun  as  a  play  on 
words.     Anyhow,  I  see  no  difference  between  a  play  on  words 

and ' '     {Sebastien  comes  in  to  collect  circulars  to  be  checked 

and  signed.^ 

ViMEUx.  "Here  you  are,  my  fine  fellow!  Your  time  of 
trial  is  over;  you  will  be  established  !  Monsieur  Rabourdin 
will  get  the  appointment.  You  were  at  Madame  Rabourdin's 
party  yesterday. "  How  lucky  you  are  to  go  to  that  house  ! 
They  say  that  very  handsome  women  go  there." 

Sebastien.     "  I  do  not  know." 

Fleury.      "Are  you  blind  ?  " 

SEBASTIEN.  "I  am  not  at  all  fond  of  looking  at  things 
when  I  cannot  have  them  !  " 

Phellion  {delighted).     "  Well  said,  young  man." 

Vimeux.  "You  surely  look  at  Madame  Rabourdin.  Why, 
hang  it  all  !  a  charming  woman." 

Fleury.  "Pooh!  a  thin  figure.  I  have  seen  her  at  the 
Tuileries  gardens.  Percilliee,  Ballet's  mistress  and  Castaing's 
victim,  is  much  more  to  my  taste." 

Phellion.  "But  what  has  an  actress  to  do  with  a  chief 
clerk's  wife?" 

DuTOCQ.      "  Both  are  playing  a  comedy." 

Fleury  (^looking  aska?ice  at  Duiocq).  "The  physical  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  moral ;  and  if  by  that  you  under- 
stand  " 

DuTOCQ.      "For  my  own  part,  I  understand  nothing." 

Fleury.  "Which  of  us  will  be  chief  clerk?  who  wants 
to  know  ?  " 

Omnes.     "Tell  us!" 

Fleury.     '^t  will  be  CoUeville." 

Thuillier.     "Why?" 

Fleury.  "  Madame  CoUeville  has  finally  taken  the  short- 
est way — through  the  sacristy." 

Thuillier  {drily).     "  I  am  too  much  Monsieur  Colleville's 


LES  EMPLOYES.  353 

friend,  Monsieur  Fleury,  not   to  beg  of  you  to  refrain   from 
speaking  lightly  of  his  wife." 

Phellion.  "  Women,  who  have  no  way  of  defending 
themselves,  should  never  be  the  subject  of  our  conversa- 
tions  " 

ViMEUX.  "And  so  much  the  less,  since  pretty  Madame 
CoUeville  would  not  ask  Fleury  to  her  house  ;  so  he  blackens 
her  character  by  way  of  revenge." 

Fleury.  "■  She  would  not  receive  me  on  the  same  footing 
as  Thuillier,  but  I  went " 

Thuillier.     "When?     Where?     Under  her  windows  ?  " 

Fleury's  swagger  made  him  so  formidable  a  person  in  the 
office  that  every  one  was  surprised  when  he  took  Thuillier's 
last  word.  His  resignation  had  its  source  in  a  bill  for  two 
hundred  francs  with  a  tolerably  doubtful  signature,  which  doc- 
ument Thuillier  was  to  present  to  his  sister.  .\  deep  silence 
succeeded  to  the  skirmish.  Everybody  worked  from  one 
o'clock  till  three.     Du  Bruel  did  not  come  back. 

Toward  half-past  three  preparations  for  departure  were 
made — brushing  of  hats  and  changing  of  coats  went  on  simul- 
taneously all  through  the  department.  The  cherished  half- 
hour  thus  spent  on  small  domestic  cares  shortened  the  work- 
ing day  by  precisely  thirty  minutes.  The  temperature  of 
overheated  rooms  fell  several  degrees  ;  the  odor  peculiar  to 
offices  evaporated ;  silence  settled  down  once  more  ;  and  by 
four  o'clock  none  were  left  but  the  real  workers,  the  clerks 
who  took  their  duties  in  earnest.  A  minister  may  know  the 
men  that  do  the  work  of  the  department  by  making  a  round 
thereof  punctually  at  four  o'clock;  but  such  great  and  serious 
persons  never  by  any  chance  indulge  in  espionage  of  this  kind. 

At  that  hour  divers  chief  clerks  met  each  other  in  the 
courtyard  and  exchanged  their  ideas  on  the  day's  events. 
Generally  speaking,  as  they  walked  off  by  twos  and  threes, 
the  opinion  was  in  favor  of  Rabourdin  ;  but  a  few  old  stagers, 
such  as  M,  Clergeot,  would  shake  their  heads  with  a  ^'  Habcfii 
23 


354  LES  EMPLOYES. 

sua  sidera  /tles.^'  Saillard  and  Baudoyer  were  courteously 
avoided.  Nobody  knew  quite  what  to  say  to  them  about 
Billardiere's  death,  and  everybody  felt  that  Baudoyer  might 
want  the  berth,  though  he  had  no  right  to  it. 

When  the  last-named  pair  had  left  the  buildings  some  dis- 
tance behind,  Saillard  broke  silence  with  :  "  This  is  not  going 
well  for  you,  my  poor  Baudoyer." 

"I  fail  to  understand  what  Elizabeth  is  thinking  about," 
returned  his  son-in-law.  "  She  sent  Godard  post-haste  for  a 
passport  for  Fallcix.  Godard  said  that,  acting  on  Uncle 
Mitral's  advice,  she  hired  a  post-chaise,  and  Falleix  is  on  the 
way  back  to  his  own  country  at  this  moment." 

"  Something  connected  with  the  business,  no  doubt,"  said 
Saillard. 

"  The  most  urgent  business  for  us  just  now  is  to  find  a  way 
of  getting  Monsieur  de  la  Billardiere's  place." 

They  had  come  along  the  Rue  Saint-Honorc,  till  by  this 
time  they  had  reached  the  Palais  Royal.  Dutocq  came  up 
and  raised  his  hat. 

"  If  I  can  be  of  any  use  to  you,  sir,  under  the  circum- 
stances, pray  command  me,"  he  said,  addressing  Baudoyer. 
*'  I  am  not  less  devoted  than  Monsieur  Godard  to  your  in- 
terests." 

"Such  an  overture  is,  at  any  rate,  a  consolation,"  returned 
Baudoyer;   "one  has  the  esteem  of  honest  people." 

"  If  you  will  condescend  to  use  your  influence  to  procure 
the  place  of  assistant  clerk  under  you,  and  the  chief  clerk's 
place  for  Monsieur  Bixiou,  you  will  make  the  fortunes  of  two 
men,  and  both  of  them  arc  capable  of  doing  anything  to 
secure  your  elevation." 

"Are  you  laughing  at  us,  sir?"  asked  Saillard,  opening 
wide  foolish  eyes. 

"Far  be  the  thought  from  me,"  said  Dutocq.  "I  have 
just  been  to  take  the  obituary  notice  of  Monsieur  de  la  Billar- 
difere  to  the  newspapers;  Monsieur  des  Lupeaulx  sent  me.     I 


LES  £AIPLOY£s.  355 

have  the  highest  respect  for  your  talents  after  reading  the 
article  in  the  paper.  When  the  time  comes  for  making  an 
end  of  Rabourdin,  it  is  in  my  power  to  strike  the  final  blow; 
condescend  to  recollect  that." 

Dutocq  disappeared. 

"I'll  be  hanged  if  I  understand  a  word  of  this,"  said  Sail- 
lard,  as  he  stared  at  Baudoyer,  whose  little  eyes  expressed  no 
common  degree  of  bewilderment.  "  We  must  send  out  for 
the  paper  this  evening." 

When  the  pair  entered  the  sitting-room  on  the  first  floor 
they  found  Mme.  Saillard,  Elizabeth,  M.  Gaudron,  and  the 
vicar  of  St.  Paul's,  all  seated  by  a  large  fire.  The  vicar  turned 
as  they  came  in ;  and  Elizabeth,  looking  at  her  husband, 
made  a  sign  of  intelligence,  but,  owing  to  his  denseness,  to 
little  purpose. 

"  Sir,"  the  cure  was  saying,  "  I  was  unwilling  to  delay  my 
thanks  for  the  magnificent  gift  with  which  you  haVe  adorned 
my  poor  church ;  I  could  not  venture  into  debt  to  buy  that 
splendid  monstrance.  It  is  fit  for  a  cathedral.  As  one  of 
the  most  regular  and  pious  of  our  parishioners,  you  must  have 
been  particularly  impressed  by  the  bareness  of  the  high  altar. 
I  am  just  going  to  see  Monsieur  le  Coadjuteur ;  he  will  shortly 
express  his  satisfaction." 

"I  have  done  nothing  as  yet "  began  Baudoyer,  but 

his  wife  broke  in  upon  him. 

"Monsieur  le  Cure,"  said  she,  "I  may  betray  the  whole 
of  his  secret  now.  Monsieur  Baudoyer  counts  upon  com- 
pleting what  he  has  begun  by  giving  you  a  canopy  against 
corpus  Domini.  But  the  purchase  depends,  to  some  extent, 
upon  the  state  of  our  finances,  and  our  finances  depend  upon 
our  advancement." 

"God  rewards  those  who  honor  Him,"  said  M.  Gaudron, 
as  he  followed  the  cure. 

"Why  do  you  not  do  us  the  honor  to  take  pot-luck  with 
us?"  asked  Saillard. 


366  LES  EMPLOYES. 

"Don't  go,  my  dear  Gaudron,"  said  the  cure.  "I  have 
an  invitation  to  dine  with  the  cure  of  Saint-Roch,  you  know; 
he  will  take  Monsieur  de  la  Billardiere's  funeral  service  to- 
morrow." 

"  Monsieur  le  Cure  dc  Saint-Roch  might  say  a  word  for  us, 
perhaps?  "  began  Baudoyer,  but  his  wife  gave  a  sharp  tug  at 
his  coat-tails. 

"  Do  be  quiet,  Baudoyer  !  "  she  whispered,  as  she  drew  him 
into  a  corner.  "  You  have  given  a  monstrance  worth  five 
thousand  francs  to  our  parish  church.  I  will  explain  it  all 
by-and-by." 

Baudoyer,  the  close-fisted,  made  a  hideous  grimace,  and 
appeared  pensive  throughout  dinner. 

"Whatever  made  you  take  so  much  trouble  to  get  a  pass- 
port for  Falleix?  What  is  this  that  you  are  meddling  in?" 
he  asked  at  length. 

"  It  seems  to  me  that  Falleix's  business  is,  to  some  extent, 
ours,"  Elizabeth  answered  drily,  warning  her  husband  with  a 
glance  not  to  speak  before  M.  Gaudron. 

"Certainly  it  is,"  said  old  Saillard,  thinking  of  the  part- 
nership. 

"  You  reached  the  newspaper  offices  in  time,  I  hope,"  con- 
tinued Elizabeth,  addressing  M.  Gaudron,  as  she  handed  him 
a  plate  of  soup. 

"Yes,  my  dear  madame,"  the  cure  replied.  "One  editor 
made  not  the  slightest  difficulty  when  he  read  the  few  words 
from  the  grand  almoner's  secretary.  Through  his  good  offices 
the  little  paragraph  was  put  in  the  most  suitable  position.  I 
should  never  have  thought  of  that,  but  the  young  man  at  the 
newspaper  office  was  very  wide  awake.  The  champions  of  re- 
ligion may  now  combat  infidelity  with  equal  forces,  for  there 
is  much  talent  shown  in  the  Royalist  newspapers.  I  have 
every  reason  to  believe  that  success  will  crown  your  hopes. 
But  you  must  remember,  my  dear  Baudoyer,  to  use  your  in- 
fluence for  Monsieur  Colleville.     It  is  in  him  that  his  emi- 


LES  EMPLOYES.  357 

nence  is  interested,  and  I  received  an  injunction  to  mention 
Monsieur  CoUeville  to  you." 

"  If  I  am  head  of  the  division,  he  shall  be  one  of  my 
chief  clerks  if  they  like,"  said  Baudoyer. 

The  clue  to  the  riddle  was  discovered  after  dinner  when 
the  porter  came  in  with  the  ministerial  paper.  The  two 
following  paragraphs  (called  enh-e-fikts  in  journalistic  lan- 
guage) appeared  therein  among  the  items  of  news: 

"  M.  LE  Baron  de  la  Billardiere  died  this  morning 
after  a  long  and  painful  illness.  In  him  the  King  loses  a 
devoted  servant,  and  the  church  one  of  the  most  pious  among 
her  children.  M.  de  la  Billardi^re's  end  was  a  worthy  crown 
of  a  great  career,  a  fitting  termination  of  a  life  that  was 
wholly  devoted  to  perilous  missions  in  perilous  times,  and  sub- 
sequently to  the  fulfillment  of  very  difificult  duties.  As  grand 
provost  of  a  department,  M.  de  la  Billardidre's  force  of  char- 
acter triumphed  over  all  obstacles  raised  by  rebellion  ;  and 
later,  when  he  accepted  an  arduous  post  as  the  head  of  a  de- 
partment, his  insight  was  not  less  useful  than  his  Frenchman's 
urbanity  in  the  conduct  of  the  weighty  affairs  transacted  in 
his  province.  No  rewards  were  ever  better  deserved  than 
those  by  which  his  majesty  was  pleased  to  crown  a  loyalty 
that  never  wavered  under  the  usurper.  The  ancient  family 
will  live  again  in  a  younger  scion,  who  inherits  the  talent 
and  devotion  of  the  excellent  man  whose  loss  is  mourned  by 
so  many  friends.  His  majesty,  with  a  gracious  word,  has 
already  given  out  that  M.  Benjamin  de  la  Billardidre  is  to  be 
one  of  the  gentlemen  in  ordinary  of  the  bedchamber. 

"Any  of  the  late  M.  de  la  Billardiere's  numerous  friends 
who  have  not  yet  received  cards,  and  may  not  receive  them 
in  time,  are  informed  that  the  funeral  will  take  place  to- 
morrow at  Saint-Roch  at  four  o'clock.  The  funeral  sermon 
will  be  preached  by  M.  I'Abbe  Fontanon." 


358  LES  EMPLOYES. 

"  M.  Isidore  Baudoyer,  representative  of  one  of  the 
oldest  burglicr  families  in  Paris,  and  chief  clerk  in  the  La 
Billardicre  division,  has  just  revived  memories  of  the  old 
traditions  of  piety  which  distinguished  the  great  burgher 
houses  of  olden  times,  when  citizens  were  so  jealous  of  the 
pomp  of  religion  and  such  lovers  of  her  monuments.  The 
church  of  St.  Paul,  a  basilica  which  we  owe  to  the  Society  of 
Jesus,  lacked  a  monstrance  in  keeping  with  its  architectural 
splendors.  Neither  the  vestry  nor  the  incumbent  could  afford 
to  give  such  an  adornment  to  the  altar.  M,  Baudoyer  has 
just  presented  the  parish  with  the  monstrance  that  many 
persons  have  admired  at  the  establishment  of  M.  Gohier,  the 
King's  goldsmith ;  and,  thanks  to  piety  that  did  not  shrink 
from  so  large  a  sum,  the  church  of  St.  Paul  now  possesses  a 
masterpiece  of  the  goldsmith's  craft,  executed  from  M.  de 
Sommervicux's*  designs.  We  are  glad  to  give  publicity  to  a 
fact  which  shows  the  absurdity  of  Liberal  bombast  as  to  the 
state  of  feeling  among  the  Parisian  bourgeoisie.  The  upper 
middle  classes  have  been  Royalist  through  all  time,  and 
always  will  prove  themselves  Royalists  at  need." 

"The  price  was  five  thousand  francs,"  said  the  Abbe 
Gaudron,  "but  for  ready  money  the  Court  goldsmith  lowered 
his  demands." 

"Representative  of  one  of  the  oldest  burgher  families  in 
Paris!'"  repeated  Saillard.  "There  it  is  in  print,  and  in 
the  official  paper  too  !  " 

"  Dear  Monsieur  Gaudron,  do  help  my  father  to  think  of 
something  to  slip  into  the  countess'  ear  when  he  takes  her  the 
monthly  allowance — ^just  a  few  words  that  say  everything. 
I  will  leave  you  now.  I  must  go  out  with  Uncle  Mitral. 
Would  you  believe  it?  I  could  not  find  Uncle  Bidault. 
What  dog-hole  can  he  be  living  in  !  Monsieur  Mitral,  know- 
ing his  ways,  said  that  all  his  business  is  done  between  eight 
*  See  "At  the  Sign  of  the  Cat  and  Racket." 


LES  EMPLOYES.  359 

o'clock  and  noon  ;  after  that  hour  he  is  only  to  be  found  at  a 
place  called  the  Cafe  Themis — a  queer-sounding  name " 

"  Do  they  do  justice  there?  "  the  abbe  asked,  laughing. 

"  How  does  he  get  to  a  cafe  at  the  corner  of  the  Quai  des 
Augustins  and  the  Rue  Dauphine?  He  plays  a  game  of 
dominoes  there  with  his  friend  Monsieur  Gobscck  every  night, 
they  say.  I  don't  want  to  go  all  by  myself,  but  uncle  will 
take  me  and  bring  me  back  again." 

As  she  spoke,  Mitral  showed  his  yellow  countenance  be- 
neath a  wig  that  might  have  been  made  of  twitch-grass  and 
plastered  down  on  the  top  of  his  head.  This  worthy  made  a 
sign,  which,  being  interpreted,  meant  that  his  niece  had  better 
come  at  once,  without  further  waste  of  time  which  was  paid 
at  the  rate  of  two  francs  an  hour ;  and  Mme.  Baudoyer  went 
accordingly,  without  a  word  of  explanation  to  her  father  or 
husband. 

When  Elizabeth  had  gone,  M.  Gaudron  turned  to  Baudoyer. 

'*  Heaven,"  observed  he,  "  has  bestowed  on  you  a  treasure  of 
prudence  and  virtue  in  your  wife;  she  is  a  pattern  of  wisdom, 
a  Christian  woman  with  a  divine  gift  of  understanding.  Re- 
ligion  alone  can  form  a  character  so  complete.  To-morrow  I 
will  say  the  mass  for  the  success  of  the  good  cause.  In  the  in- 
terests of  the  monarchy  and  religion  you  must  be  appointed. 
Monsieur  Rabourdin  is  a  Liberal;  he  subscribes  to  the  'Jour- 
nal des  Dcbats,'  a  disastrous  publication  that  levies  war  on 
Monsieur  Ic  Comte  dc  Villelc  to  serve  the  interests  of  Mon- 
sieur de  Chateaubriand.  His  eminence  is  sure  to  see  the 
paper  this  evening,  if  it  is  only  on  account  of  his  poor  friend 
Monsieur  de  la  Billardi^re  ;  and  Monseigneur  le  Coadjuteur  will 
be  sure  to  mention  you  and  Rabourdin.  I  know  Monsieur  le 
Cure ;  if  any  one  thinks  of  his  dear  church,  he  does  not  forget 
them  in  his  sermon  ;  and  now,  at  this  moment,  he  has  the 
honor  to  dine  with  the  coadjuteur  at  the  house  of  Monsieur  le 
Curi  dc  Saint-Roch." 

At  these  words   it   began  to  dawn  upon  Saillard  and  Ban- 


360  l-ES   EMPLOYES. 

doyer  that  Elizabeth  had  not  been  idle  since  Godard  brought 
her  the  news. 

"She  is  a  sharp  one,  is  Elizabeth!"  cried  Saillard.  He 
could  appreciate  his  daughter's  quick,  mole-like  progress  more 
fully  than  the  abbe  could. 

"She  sent  Godard  to  Monsieur  Rabourdin's  to  find  out 
what  newspaper  he  takes,"  continued  Gaudron,  "and  I  gave 
his  eminence's  secretary  a  hint ;  for  as  things  are  at  this  mo- 
ment, the  church  and  the  crown  are  bound  to  know  their 
friends  and  their  enemies." 

"These  five  days  I  have  been  trying  to  think  of  something 
to  say  to  his  excellency's  wife,"  said  Saillard. 

Baudoyer  could  not  take  his  eyes  off  the  paper.  "All  Paris 
is  reading  that,"  he  said. 

"  Your  praise  costs  us  four  thousand  eight  hundred  francs, 
sonny  !  "  said  Mme.  Saillard. 

"You  have  nobly  adorned  the  house  of  God,"  put  in  the 
Abbe  Gaudron. 

"We  might  have  saved  our  souls  without  that,  though," 
returned  she.  "But  the  place,  if  Baudoyer  gets  it,  is  worth  an 
extra  eight  thousand  francs,  so  the  sacrifice  will  not  be  great. 
And  if  he  doesn't?  Eh!  ma  mere?'"  she  continued,  as  she 
looked  at  her  husband.     "  If  he  doesn't — what  a  drain  on  us!  " 

"Oh!  well,"  cried  Saillard,  in  the  enthusiasm  of  the  mo- 
ment, "  then  we  should  make  it  up  out  of  the  business.  Falleix 
is  going  to  expand  his  business.  He  made  his  brother  a  stock- 
jobber on  purpose  to  make  him  useful.  Elizabeth  might  as 
well  have  told  us  why  Falleix  had  flown  off.  But  let  us  think 
of  something  to  say.  This  is  what  I  thought  of:  '  Madame, 
if  you  would  only  say  a  word  to  his  excellency '  " 

"  '  Would  only  !  '  "  broke  in  Gaudron.  "  '  If  you  would 
condescend '  is  more  resp>ectful.  Beside,  you  must  first  make 
sure  that  Madame  la  Dauphine  will  use  her  influence  for  you, 
for  in  that  case  you  might  insinuate  the  notion  of  falling  in 
with  her  royal  highness'  wishes." 


LES  EMPLOYES.  361 

**  The  vacant  post  ought  to  be  expressly  named,"  said  Bau- 
doyer. 

"  '  Madame  la  Comtesse,'  "  began  Saillard,  as  he  rose  to  his 
feet,  with  an  ingratiating  smile  directed  at  his  wife. 

"  Good  gracious,  Saillard,  how  funny  you  look  !  Do  take 
care,  my  boy,  or  you  will  make  her  laugh." 

"  '  Madame  la  Comtesse  !  '  (Is  that  better  ?)  "  he  asked  of 
his  wife. 

"Yes,  ducky." 

"'The  late  Monsieur  de  la  Billardi^re's  place  is  vacant ; 
my  son-in-law.  Monsieur  Baudoyer '  " 

"  'A  man  of  talent  and  lofty  piety,'  "  prompted  Gaudron. 

"Put  it  down,  Baudoyer,"  cried  old  Saillard;  "put  it 
down  !  " 

Baudoyer,  in  all  simplicity,  took  up  a  pen  and  wrote  his 
own  panegyric  without  a  blush,  precisely  as  Nathan  or  Canalis 
might  review  one  of  his  own  books. 

"  '  Madame  la  Comtesse,'  "  repeated  Saillard,  for  the  third 
time,  then  he  broke  off;  "you  see,  mother,  I  am  making 
believe  that  vou  are  the  minister's  wife." 

"  Do  you  take  me  for  a  fool  ?  "  retorted  she.  "I  see  that 
quite  well." 

"'The  late  worthy  Monsieur  de  la  Billardi^re's  place  is 
vacant  ;  my  son-in-law.  Monsieur  Baudoyer,  a  man  of  con- 
summate talent  and  lofty  piety '  " 

He  paused  for  a  moment,  looked  at  M.  Gaudron,  who 
seemed  to  be  pondering  something,  and  then  added — 

"'Would  be  very  glad  to  get  it.'  Ha!  not  bad,  it  is 
short,  and  says  all  we  want  to  say." 

"  But  just  wait  a  bit,  Saillard  !  You  surely  can  see  tiiat 
Monsieur  I'Abbe  is  turning  things  over  in  his  mind,"  cried 
his  wife,  "so  don't  disturb  him." 

"'Would  be  very  happy  if  you  would  deign  to  interest 
yourself  on  his  behalf,'  "  resumed  Gaudron  ;  "  '  and  by  saying 
a  few  words  to  his  excellency  you  would  be  doing  Madame  la 


362  LES  EMPLOYES. 

Dauphine  a  particular  pleasure,  for  it  has  been  his  good  for- 
tune to  find  a  protectress  in  her.'  " 

"Ah  !  Monsieur  Gaudron,  that  last  remark  was  well  worth 
the  monstrance  ;  I  am  not  so  sorry  now  about  the  four  thou- 
sand eight  hundred  francs.  Beside,  Baudoyer,  I  say,  you  are 
going  to  pay  for  it,  my  boy.     Have  you  put  that  down  ?  " 

"  I  will  hear  you  say  that  over,  night  and  morning,  ma 
mere,''  said  Mme.  Saillard.  "Yes,  it  is  very  well  hit  off,  is 
that  speech.  How  fortunate  you  are  to  be  so  learned,  Mon- 
sieur Gaudron  !  That  is  what  comes  of  studying  in  these 
seminaries;  you  are  taught  how  to  speak  to  God  and  the 
saints." 

"  He  is  as  kind  as  he  is  learned,"  said  Baudoyer,  grasping 
the  abbe's  hands  as  he  spoke.  "  Did  you  write  that  article?" 
he  continued,  pointing  to  the  paper. 

"No,"  returned  Gaudron.  "It  was  written  by  his  emi- 
nence's secretary,  a  young  fellow  who  lies  under  great  obliga- 
tions to  me,  and  takes  an  interest  in  Monsieur  CoUeville.  I 
paid  for  his  education  at  the  seminary." 

"A  good  deed  never  loses  its  reward,"  commented  Bau- 
doyer. 

When  these  four  personages  seated  themselves  down  at  their 
game  of  boston,  Elizabeth  and  Uncle  Mitral  had  reached  the 
Cafe  Themis,  talking  by  the  way  of  the  business  on  hand. 
Elizabeth's  tact  had  discovered  the  most  powerful  lever  to 
force  the  minister's  hand.  Uncle  Mitral,  a  retired  bailiff, 
was  an  expert  in  chicanery,  in  legal  expedients,  and  precau- 
tions. He  considered  that  the  honor  of  the  family  was  in- 
volved in  his  nephew's  success.  Avarice  had  led  him  to  cast 
an  eye  into  Gigonnet's  strong  box  ;  he  knew  that  all  the 
money  would  go  to  his  nephew,  Baudoyer  ;  and  therefore  he 
wished  to  see  Baudoyer  in  a  position  that  befitted  the  fortunes 
of  the  Saillards  and  Gigonnet,  for  all  would  come  some  day 
to  Elizabeth's  little  daughter.  What  may  not  a  girl  look  for 
when  she  has  more  than  a  hundred  thousand  francs  a  year  ? 


LES  EMPLOYES.  363 

Mitral  had  taken  up  his  niece's  ideas  and  grasped  them  thor- 
oughly. So  he  had  hastened  Falleix's  journey  by  explaining 
that  you  can  travel  quicker  by  post.  Since  then  he  had  re- 
flected, over  his  dinner,  upon  the  proper  curve  to  be  given  to 
a  spring  of  Elizabeth's  designing. 

Arrived  at  the  Cafe  Themis,  he  told  his  niece  that  he  had 
better  go  in  alone  to  arrange  with  Gigonnet,  and  left  her  out- 
side in  tlie  hack  till  the  time  should  come  for  her  intervention. 
Elizabeth  could  see  Gobseck  and  Bidault  through  the  window- 
panes;  their  heads  were  thrown  into  relief  by  the  bright 
yellow-painted  panels  of  the  old-fashioned  coffee-house;  they 
looked  like  two  cameos ;  it  seemed  as  if  the  cold,  unchanging 
expression  on  their  countenances  had  been  caught  and  fixed 
there  by  the  carver's  art.  The  misers  were  surrounded  by 
aged  faces,  each  one  furrowed  with  curving  wrinkles  that 
started  from  the  nose  and  brought  the  glazed  cheek-bones 
into  prominence — wrinkles  in  which  thirty  per  cent,  discount 
seemed  to  be  written.  All  the  faces  brightened  up  at  sight 
of  Mitral;  a  tigerish  curiosity  glittered  in  all  eyes. 

"Hey!  hey!  it  is  Daddy  Mitral!"  cried  Chaboisseau,  a 
little  old  bill-discounter,  who  did  his  business  among  pub- 
lishers and  booksellers. 

"  My  word  !  so  it  is,"  replied  the  paper-merchant,  by  name 
Mdtivier.  "Ah  !  'tis  an  old  monkey,  you  can't  teach  him  any 
tricks!" 

"And  you  are  an  old  raven,  a  good  judge  of  corpses." 

"Precisely  so,"  said  the  stern  Gobseck. 

'•Why  liave  you  come  here,  my  boy  !  To  nab  our  friend 
Metivier?"*  asked  Gigonnet,  pointing  out  a  man  who  looked 
like  a  retired  porter. 

"  Your  Grandniece  Elizabeth  is  outside,  Daddy  Gigonnet," 
whispered  Mitral. 

"What?     Anything  wrong? "  queried  Bidault.     The  old 
man  scowled  as  he  spoke,  and  his  air  was  about  as  tender  as 
*  See  "  Lost  Illusions  "  and  "  The  Middle  Classes." 


364  LES  EMPLOYES. 

the  expression  of  a  headsman  on  a  scaffold  ;  but,  in  spite  of 
his  Roman  manhood,  he  must  have  felt  perturbed,  for  his  deep 
carmine  countenance  lost  a  trifle  of  its  color. 

"  Well,  and  if  something  had  gone  wrong,  wouldn't  you 
help  Saillard's  child,  a  little  thing  that  has  knitted  stockings 
for  you  these  thirty  years?"  cried  Mitral. 

"  If  security  is  forthcoming,  I  do  not  say  no,"  returned 
Gigonnet.  "  Falleix  is  in  this.  Your  Falleix  has  set  up  his 
brother  as  a  stockbroker ;  he  does  as  much  business  as  the 
Brczacs  ;  with  what?  His  brains,  no  doubt.  After  all,  Sail- 
lard  is  not  a  baby." 

"  He  knows  the  value  of  money,"  remarked  Chaboisseau. 
And  one  and  all  the  old  men  wagged  their  heads.  A  man  of 
imagination  would  have  shuddered  if  he  had  heard  those  words 
as  they  were  uttered. 

"  Beside,  if  anything  happens  to  my  kith  or  kin,  it  is  no 
affair  of  mine,"  began  Bidault-Gigonnet.  "  I  make  it  a 
principle,"  continued  he,  "  never  to  be  let  in  with  my  friends 
or  relatives  ;  for  you  only  get  your  death  through  your  weakest 
spot.     Ask  Gobseck  ;  he  is  soft." 

All  the  bill-discounters  applauded  this  doctrine,  nodding 
their  metallic  heads,  till  you  might  have  listened  for  the 
creaking  of  ill-greased  machinery. 

"  Oh,  come  now,  Gigonnet,"  put  in  Chaboisseau,  ''a  little 
tenderness  when  your  stockings  have  been  knitted  for  you  for 
thirty  years." 

"Ah  !  that  counts  for  something,"  commented  Gobseck. 

''There  are  no  outsiders  here,"  pursued  Mitral,  who  had 
been  taking  a  look  round,  "  so  we  can  speak  freely.  I  have 
come  here  with  a  bit  of  good  business " 

"If  it  is  good,  what  makes  you  come  to  us?"  Gigonnet 
interrupted  sourly. 

"  A  chap  that  was  a  gentleman  of  the  bedchamber,  an  old 
Chouan,  what's  his  name — La  Billardiere — is  dead." 

"  Really  ?  "  asked  Gobseck. 


LES  EMPLOYES.  365 

"  And  here  is  my  nephew  giving  monstrances  to  churches  !  " 
said  Gigonnet. 

"He  is  not  such  a  fool  as  to  give,  he  is  selling  them, 
daddy,"  Mitral  retorted  proudly.  "It  is  a  question  of  get- 
ting Monsieur  de  la  Billardiere's  place ;  and  to  reach  it,  one 
must  seize " 


'^  Seize  !  Always  a  bailiff !  "  cried  Metivier,  clapping  Mitral 
on  the  shoulder.      "  I  like  that,  I  do  I  " 

"Seizingthe  SieurChardin  des  Lupeaulx  between  our  claws," 
continued  Mitral.  "Now,  Elizabeth  has  found  out  how  to 
do  it,  and  it  is " 

"Elizabeth!"  Gigonnet  broke  in  again.  "Dear  little 
creature  !  She  takes  after  her  grandfather,  my  poor  brother, 
Bidault  had  not  his  like.  Ah  !  if  you  liad  only  seen  him  at 
old  furniture  sales.  Such  an  instinct  !  Up  to  everytliing  ! 
What  does  she  want  ?  " 

"Oh,  come  now!  Daddy  Gigonnet,  you  find  your  family 
affections  very  quickly.  There  must  be  some  cause  for  this 
phenomenon." 

"You  child!"  said  Gobseck,  addressing  Gigonnet,  "al- 
ways too  impetuous." 

"Come,  my  masters,  Gobseck  and  Gigonnet  both,  you 
need  des  Lupeaulx ;  you  recollect  how  you  plucked  him,  and 
you  are  afraid  that  he  may  ask  for  a  little  of  his  down  again," 
said  Mitral. 

"  Can  we  talk  of  this  business  with  him  ?  "  Gobseck  asked, 
indicating  Mitral. 

"Mitral  is  one  of  us;  he  would  not  play  a  trick  on  old 
customers,"  returned  Gigonnet.  "Very  well,  Mitral.  Be- 
tween ourselves,"  he  continued,  lowering  his  voice  lor  the 
retired  bailiff's  ear,  "we  three  have  just  been  buying  up  cer- 
tain debts,  and  the  admission  of  them  lies  with  the  Committee 
of  Liquidation." 

"  What  can  you  concede  ?  "  asked  Mitral. 

"Nothing,"  said  Gobseck. 


366  LES  EMPLOYES. 

"Our  names  don't  appear  in  it,"  added  Gigonnet.  "  Sa- 
manon  is  acting  as  our  fence." 

"Look  here,  Gigonnet,"  began  Mitral.  "It  is  cold,  and 
your  grandniece  is  waiting.  I'll  put  the  whole  thing  in  a 
word  or  two,  and  you  will  understand.  You  two  between 
you  must  lend  Falleix  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  francs, 
without  interest.  At  this  present  moment  he  is  tearing  along 
the  road  thirty  leagues  away  from  Paris,  with  a  courier  riding 
ahead." 

"Is  it  possible  ?  "  asked  Gobseck. 

"  Where  is  he  going  ?  "  cried  Gigonnet. 

"Why,  he  is  going  down  to  des  Lupeaulx's  fine  estate  in 
the  country.  He  knows  the  neighborhood ;  and  with  the 
aforesaid  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  francs  he  is  going  to 
buy  up  some  of  the  excellent  land  round  about  the  secretary- 
general's  hovel.  The  land  will  always  fetch  what  was  given 
for  it.  And  a  deed  signed  in  the  presence  of  a  notary  need 
not  be  registered  for  nine  days — bear  that  in  mind  !  With 
these  trifling  additions,  des  Lupeaulx's  '  estate '  will  pay  a 
thousand  francs  per  annum  in  taxes.  Ergo,  des  Lupeaulx  will 
be  an  elector  of  the  'grand  college,^  qualified  for  election,  a 
count  and  anything  that  he  likes.  Do  you  know  the  deputy 
that  backed  out  of  it?" 

The  two  usurers  nodded. 

"  Des  Lupeaulx  would  cut  off  a  leg  to  be  a  deputy,"  con- 
tinued Mitral.  "  But  when  we  show  him  the  contracts,  he 
will  be  for  having  them  made  out  in  his  name ;  our  loan  to  be 
charged,  of  course,  as  a  mortgage  on  tlie  land,  reserving  the 
right  to  sell,  (Aha  !  do  you  take  me  ?)  First  of  all,  we  want 
the  place  for  Baudoyer ;  afterward  we  hand  over  des  Lupeaulx 
to  you.  Falleix  is  stopping  down  there,  getting  ready  for  the 
election  ;  so  through  Falleix  you  will  have  a  pistol  held  to  des 
Lupeaulx's  head  all  through  the  election,  for  Falleix's  friends 
are  in  the  majority.  Do  you  see  Falleix's  hand  in  this,  Daddy 
Gigonnet  ?  " 


LES  EMPLOYES.  367 

"  I  see  Mitral's  too,"  remarked  Metivier.  "The  trick  is 
neatly  done." 

"It  is  a  bargain,"  said  Gigonnet.  "That  is  so,  isn't  it, 
Gobseck?  Falleix  must  sign  counter-deeds  for  us,  and  have 
the  mortgage  made  out  in  his  own  name ;  and  we  will  pay  des 
Lupeaulx  a  visit  in  the  nick  of  time." 

"And  we  arc  being  robbed,"  put  in  Gobseck. 

"  Ah  1  I  should  very  much  like  to  know  the  man  that  robs 
you,  daddy,"  retorted  Mural. 

"  Why,  no  one  can  rob  us  but  ourselves,"  returned  Gigon- 
net. "  We  thought  we  were  doing  a  good  thing  v/hen  we 
bought  up  all  des  Lupeaulx' s  debts  at  a  discount  of  sixty  per 
cent." 

"You  can  add  them  to  the  mortgage  on  his  place,  and 
have  yet  another  hold  on  him  through  the  interest,"  returned 
Mitral. 

"That  is  possible,"  said  Gobseck. 

Bidault,  alias  Gigonnet,  exchanged  a  quick  glance  with 
Gobseck,  and  went  to  the  door. 

"Go  ahead,  Elizabeth!"  he  said,  addressing  his  niece. 
"We  have  your  man  fast,  but  look  after  details.  You  have 
made  a  good  beginning,  sly  girl  !  Go  through  with  it,  you 
have  your  uncle's  esteem "  and  he  struck  his  hand  play- 
fully in  hers. 

"But  Metivier  and  Chaboisseau  may  try  a  sudden  stroke," 
said  Mitral;  "they  might  go  to-niglu  to  some  Opposition 
paper,  catch  the  ball  at  a  rebound,  and  pay  us  back  for  the 
Ministerialist  article.  Go  back  by  yourself,  child  ;  I  will  not 
let  those  two  cormorants  go  out  of  sight." 

And  he  returned  to  the  cafe. 

"  To-morrow  the  money  shall  go  to  its  destination  through 
a  word  to  tlie  receiver-general.  We  will  raise  a  hundred  thou- 
sand crowns'  worth  of  his  paper  among  friends,  ^^  said  Gigon- 
net, when  Mitral  came  to  speak  to  him. 


368  LES  EMPLOYES. 

Next  day  the  readers  of  a  Liberal  paper  in  wide  circulation 
beheld  the  following  paragraph  among  the  items  of  news.  It 
had  been  inserted  by  command  of  Messrs.  Chaboisseau  and 
Metivier,  to  whom  no  editor  could  refuse  anything;  for  were 
they  not  shareholders  in  two  newspapers,  and  did  they  not 
also  discount  the  bills  of  publishers,  printers,  and  paper- 
merchants  ? 

''Yesterday,"  so  ran  the  paragraph,  "a  Ministerialist  paper 
evidently  pointed  out  M.  le  Baron  de  la  Billardiere's  suc- 
cessor. M.  Baudoyer  is  one  of  the  most  eligible  citizens  of  a 
thickly  populated  district,  where  his  beneficence  is  not  less 
known  than  the  piety  upon  which  the  Ministerialist  sheet  lays 
so  much  stress.  But  mention  might  have  been  made  of  M. 
Baudoyer's  abilities.  Did  our  contemporary  remember  that 
even  in  vaunting  the  antiquity  of  M.  Baudoyer's  burgher  de- 
scent (and  an  ancient  burgher  ancestry  is  as  much  a  noblesse 
as  any  other),  in  the  matter  of  that  very  burgher  descent  she 
touched  upon  the  reason  of  the  probable  exclusion  of  her 
candidate?  Gratuitous  treachery!  The  good  lady,  accord- 
ing to  her  wont,  flatters  those  whom  she  destroys.  M.  Bau- 
doyer's appointment  would  be  a  tribute  to  the  virtue  and  ca- 
pacity of  the  middle  classes,  and  of  the  middle  class  we  shall 
always  be  the  advocates,  though  we  may  sec  that  often  we  are 
only  defending  a  lost  cause.  It  would  be  a  piece  of  good 
policy  and  an  act  of  justice  to  nominate  M.  Baudoyer  to  the 
vacant  post ;  so  the  ministry  will  not  permit  it.  The  religious 
sheet  for  once  showed  more  sense  than  its  masters ;  it  will  get 
into  trouble." 

The  next  day  was  Friday,  the  day  of  Mme.  Rabourdin's 
dinner-party.  At  midnight  on  Thursday  des  Lupeaulx  had 
left  her  on  the  staircase  at  the  Bouffons,  where  she  stood,  in 
her  radiant  beautv,  her  hand  on  Mme.  de  Camps'  arm  (for 
Mme.   Firmiani   had  recently   married);  and  when  the  old 


LES  EMPLOYES.  369 

libertine  came  to  himself  again,  his  ideas  of  revenge  had 
calmed  down,  or  rather  they  had  grown  cooler — he  could 
think  of  nothing  but  that  last  glance  exchanged  witli  Mme. 
Rabourdin. 

"  I  will  make  sure  of  Rabourdin,"  he  thought,  "by  forgiv- 
ing him  in  the  first  instance  ;  I  will  be  even  with  him  later  on. 
At  present,  if  he  does  not  get  his  step,  I  must  give  up  a  woman 
who  might  be  an  invaluable  aid  to  a  great  political  success, 
for  she  understands  everything ;  she  shrinks  back  from  no 
idea.  What  is  more,  in  that  case  I  should  not  find  out  this 
administrative  scheme  of  Rabourdin's  until  it  was  laid  before 
the  minister.  Come,  dear  des  Lupeaulx ;  it  is  a  question  of 
overcoming  all  obstacles  for  your  Celestine.  You  may  gri- 
mace, Madame  la  Comtesse,  but  you  are  going  to  invite  Ma- 
dame Rabourdin  to  your  next  small  select  party." 

Some  men  can  put  revenge  into  a  corner  of  their  hearts  till 
they  gratify  their  passions  ;  des  Lupeaulx  was  one  of  these. 
His  mind  was  fully  made  up;  he  determined  to  carry  Rabour- 
din's nomination. 

'*I  am  going  to  prove  to  you,  dear  chief  clerk,  that  I  de- 
serve a  high  place  in  your  diplomatic  galleys,"  he  said  to 
himself,  as  he  took  his  seat  in  his  private  office  and  opened 
his  newspapers. 

He  had  known  the  contents  of  the  Ministerial  sheet  only 
too  well  at  five  o'clock  on  the  previous  day,  so  he  did  not 
care  to  amuse  himself  by  reading  it  through ;  but  he  opened 
it  to  glance  at  the  obituary  notice  of  La  Billardidre,  thinking 
as  he  did  so  of  the  predicament  in  which  du  Bruel  had  put 
him,  when  he  brought  in  the  satirical  performance  composed 
under  Bixiou's  editorship.  He  could  not  help  laughing  as 
he  perused  the  biography  of  i\\t  late  Comte  de  la  Fontaine, 
adapted  and  reprinted,  after  a  few  months'  interval,  for  M.  de 
la  Billardiere,  Then,  all  of  a  sudden,  his  eyes  were  dazzled 
by  the  name  of  Baudoyer  !  With  fury  he  read  the  specious 
article  which  compromised  the  department.  He  rang  the  bell 
24 


370  LES  EMPLOYES. 

vigorously  and  sent  for  Dutocq,  meaning  to  send  him  to  the 
newspaper  office.  But  what  was  his  astonishment  when  he 
read  the  reply  in  the  Opposition  paper,  for  it  so  happened 
that  the  Liberal  sheet  was  the  first  to  come  to  hand.  The 
thing  was  getting  serious.  He  knew  the  dodge  ;  it  seemed 
to  him  that  the  master  hand  was  making  a  mess  of  his  cards, 
and  he  took  his  opponent  for  a  Greek  of  the  first  order.  To 
dispose  so  adroitly  of  two  papers  of  opposite  politics,  and  that 
at  once,  and  on  the  same  evening ;  to  begin  the  game,  more- 
over, by  guessing  at  the  minister's  intentions !  He  fancied 
that  he  recognized  the  hand  of  an  acquaintance,  a  Liberal 
editor,  and  vowed  to  question  him  that  night  at  the  opera. 
Dutocq  appeared. 

"Read  that,"  said  des  Lupeaulx,  holding  out  the  two 
papers  while  he  ran  his  eyes  over  the  rest  of  the  batch  to  see 
whether  Baudoyer  had  pulled  other  wires  "Just  go  and  find 
out  who  it  was  that  took  it  into  his  head  to  compromise  the 
department  in  this  way." 

*' It  was  not  Monsieur  Baudoyer  anyhow,"  replied  Dutocq. 
"He  did  not  leave  the  office  yesterday.  There  is  no  need  to 
go  to  the  office.  When  I  took  your  article  yesterday,  I  saw  the 
abb6  there.  He  came  provided  with  a  letter  from  the  grand 
almoner ;  you  yourself  would  have  given  way  if  you  had  seen 
it." 

"  Dutocq,  you  have  some  grudge  against  Monsieur  Rabour- 
din,  and  it  is  not  right  of  you,  for  he  prevented  your  dismissal 
twice.  Still  we  cannot  help  our  feelings ;  and  one  may  hap- 
pen to  dislike  a  man  who  does  one  a  kindness.  Only,  bear 
in  mind  that  if  you  permit  yourself  the  smallest  attempt  at 
treachery  against  him  until  I  give  the  word,  it  will  be  your 
ruin  \  you  can  count  me  as  your  enemy.  As  for  my  friend 
and  his  newspaper,  let  the  grand  almonry  subscribe  for  our 
number  of  copies,  if  its  columns  are  to  be  devoted  to  their 
exclusive  use.  The  year  is  almost  at  an  end,  the  question  of 
subscriptions  will  be  raised  directly,  and  then  we  shall  see. 


LES  EMPLOYES.  371 

As  for  La  Billardicre's  post,  there  is  one  way  of  putting  a  stop 
to  this  sort  of  thing,  and  that  is,  to  make  the  appointment 
this  very  day." 

Dutocq  went  back  to  the  office. 

"Gentlemen,"  he  remarked,  "I  do  not  know  whether 
Bixiou  has  the  gift  of  reading  the  future  ;  but  if  you  have  not 
seen  the  Ministerial  paper,  I  recommend  the  paragraph  on 
Baudoyer  to  your  careful  attention  ;  and  then  as  Monsieur 
Fleury  takes  the  Opposition  paper,  you  may  see  the  double  of 
it.  Certainly,  Monsieur  Rabourdin  is  a  clever  man  ;  but  a 
man  who  gives  a  monstrance  worth  six  thousand  francs  to  a 
church  is  deucedly  clever  too,  as  times  go." 

Bixiou  {coming  in).  "  What  do  you  say  to  the  first  chapter 
of  an  epistle  to  the  Corinthians  in  our  religious  paper,  and  the 
epistle  to  the  ministers  in  the  Liberal  sheet  ?  How  is  Mon- 
sieur Rabourdin,  du  Bruel  ?  " 

Du  Bruel  {coming  in^  "I  do  not  know."  {Draws 
Bixiou  into  his  sanctum  and  lowers  his  voice.)  "  My  dear 
fellow,  your  way  of  helping  a  man  is  uncommonly  like  the 
hangman's  way,  when  he  hoists  you  on  his  shoulders  the  better 
to  break  your  neck.  You  let  me  in  for  a  whipping  from  des 
Lupeaulx,  and  I  deserved  it  for  my  stupidity.  A  nice  thing 
that  article  on  La  Billardiere  !  It  is  a  trick  that  I  shall  not 
forget  !  The  very  first  sentence  as  good  as  told  the  King 
that  it  was  time  to  die.     And  the  account  of  the  Quiberon 

affair  clearly  meant  that  his  majesty  was  a The  whole 

thing  was  ironical,  in  fact." 

Bixiou  {bursting  into  a  laugh).  "Oh,  come!  are  you 
getting  cross  ?     Cannot  one  have  a  joke  ?  " 

Du  Bruel.  *•'  A  joke  !  a  joke  !  When  you  want  to  be 
chief  clerk's  assistant  they  will  put  you  off  with  jokes,  my 
dear  fellow." 

Bixiou  {with  a  threat  in  his  tones).  "  Are  we  getting 
cross  ?  ' ' 

Du  Bruel.     "Yes." 


372  LES  EMPLOY i:S. 

Bixiou  {drily).     "Very  well,  so  much  the  worse  for  you," 

Du  Bruel  {refleciiftg  uneasily).  "  Could  you  get  over  it 
yourself?  " 

Bixiou  (insinuatingly).  "  From  a  friend?  I  should  think 
I  could."  (Fleurf  s  voice  is  heard  in  the  office.)  "  There  is 
Fleury  cursing  Baudoyer.  It  was  a  neat  trick,  eh?  Baudoyer 
will  get  the  step."  (^Confidentially.)  "After  all,  so  much 
the  better.  Follow  up  the  consequences  carefully,  du  Bruel. 
Rabourdin  would  show  a  poor  spirit  if  he  stopped  on  under 
Baudoyer  ;  he  will  resign,  and  that  will  leave  two  vacant 
places.  You  will  be  chief  clerk,  and  you  will  take  me  with 
you  as  assistant.  We  will  write  vaudevilles  in  collaboration, 
and  I  will  fag  for  you  at  the  office." 

Du  Bruel  {brightening).  "  I  say,  I  did  not  think  of  that. 
Poor  Rabourdin  !     Still,  I  should  be  sorry." 

Bixiou.  "  Ah  !  so  that  is  how  you  love  him  !  "  {Chang- 
ing his  tone.)  "Oh,  well,  I  do  not  pity  him  either.  After 
all,  he  is  well  to  do  ;  his  wife  gives  parties,  and  does  not  ask 
me,  when  I  go  everywhere  !  Come,  adieu,  no  malice,  du 
Bruel  ;  there  is  a  good  fellow  !  "  {Goes  out  into  the  general 
office.)  "Good-da/,  gentlemen  !  Did  I  not  tell  you  yester- 
day that  if  a  man  has  nothing  but  principles  and  ability,  he 
will  always  be  very  badly  off,  even  with  a  pretty  wife  ?  " 

Fleury.     "You  are  rich  yourself!  " 

Bixiou.  "  Not  bad,  dear  Cincinnatus  !  But  you  are  going 
to  give  me  a  dinner  at  the  Rocher  de  Cancale." 

PoiRET.  "  I  never  know  what  to  make  of  Monsieur 
Bixiou!  " 

Phellion  {ruefully^.  "Monsieur  Rabourdin  so  seldom 
reads  the  papers,  that  it  may  be  worth  while  to  take  them  in 
for  him,  and  to  do  without  them  ourselves  for  a  bit."  {Fleury 
hands  over  his  sheet;  Vitneux  passes  the  newspaper  taken  by  the 
office;  and  Phellion  goes  out  with  them.) 

At  that   moment  des  Lupeaulx   was  going   downstairs   to 


A   WORD  OR  TWO  WITH   YOU,  MY  LORD." 


LES  EMPLOYilS.  373 

breakfast  with  the  minister.  As  he  went,  he  was  wondering 
within  himself  whether  prudence  did  not  dictate  that  he 
should  fathom  the  wife's  heart  before  displaying  the  fine 
flower  of  scoundrelism  for  the  husband,  and  make  sure,  first 
of  all,  that  his  devotion  would  be  rewarded.  He  was  feeling 
the  little  pulse  that  still  throbbed  in  his  heart,  when  he  met 
his  attorney  on  the  staircase,  and  was  greeted  with  :  "A  word 
or  two  with  you,  my  lord  !  "  uttered  with  the  smiling  famil- 
iarity of  a  nun  who  knows  that  he  is  indispensable. 

"What,  my  dear  Desroches  !  "  exclaimed  the  politician. 
"What  has  happened?  These  people  lose  their  tempers; 
they  cannot  do  as  I  do,  and  wait." 

"  I  came  at  once  to  give  you  warning  that  your  bills  are  in 
the  hands  of  Messrs.  Gobseck  and  Gigonnet,  under  the  name 
of  one  Samanon." 

"  Men  that  I  put  in  the  way  of  making  enormous  amounts 
of  money  !  " 

"Look  here!"  continued  Desroches  in  lowered  tones; 
"  Gigonnet's  name  is  Bidault ;  Saillard  your  cashier  is  his 
nephew ;  and  Saillard  is  beside  the  father-in-law  of  a  certain 
Baudoyer  who  thinks  he  has  a  right  to  the  vacant  post  in  your 
department.     I  had  cause  to  give  you  warning,  had  I  not?  " 

"Thanks,"  said  des  Lupeaulx,  with  a  nod  of  farewell  and 
a  knowing  glance. 

"  One  stroke  of  the  pen  and  you  get  a  receipt  in  full,"  said 
Desroches,  as  he  went. 

"That  is  the  way  with  these  immense  sacrifices,  you  can't 
speak  of  them  to  a  woman,"  thought  des  Lupeaulx.  "  Is 
Celestine  worth  the  riddance  of  all  my  debts?  I  will  go  and 
see  her  this  morning." 

And  so,  in  a  few  hours'  time,  the  fair  Mme.  Rabourdin  was 
to  be  the  arbiter  of  her  husband's  destinies;  and  no  power  on 
earth  could  warn  her  of  the  importance  of  her  replies,  no 
danger  signal  bid  her  compose  lier  voice  and  manner.  And, 
unluckily,  she  was  confident  of  success  ;  she  did  not  know  that 


374  LES  EMPLOY  As. 

the  ground  beneath  Rabourdin  was  undermined  in  all  direc- 
tions with  the  burrowings  of  teredos. 

"  Well,  my  lord,"  said  des  Lupeaulx,  as  he  entered  the 
breakfast-room,  "  have  you  seen  the  paragraphs  on  Baudoyer?  " 

"  For  heaven's  sake,  my  dear  fellow,  let  nominations  alone 
for  a  minute,"  returned  the  minister.  "  I  had  that  monstrance 
flung  at  my  head  yesterday.  To  secure  Rabourdin,  the  nomi- 
nation must  go  before  the  board  at  once;  I  will  not  have  my 
hand  forced.  It  is  enough  so  make  one  sick  of  public  life. 
If  we  are  to  keep  Rabourdin,  we  must  promote  one  Colleville 
who " 

"  Will  you  leave  me  to  manage  this  farce  and  think  no  more 
about  it  ?  I  will  amuse  you  every  morning  with  an  account 
of  the  moves  in  a  game  of  chess  with  the  grand  almonry," 
said  des  Lupeaulx. 

"Very  well,"  replied  the  minister,  ''work  with  the  chief 
of  the  staff.  Don't  you  know  that  an  argument  in  an  Oppo- 
sition paper  is  the  most  likely  thing  of  all  to  strike  the  King's 
mind  ?   A  minister  overruled  by  a  Baudoyer  ;  just  think  of  it !  " 

"A  bigot  and  a  driveler,"  said  des  Lupeaulx;  ''he  is  as 
incompetent  as " 

"La  Billardi^re,"  put  in  his  excellency. 

"  La  Billardiere  at  least  behaved  like  a  gentleman  in  ordi- 
nary of  the  bedchamber,"  said  des  Lupeaulx.  "Madame," 
he  continued,  turning  to  the  countess,  "it  will  be  absolutely 
necessary  now  to  invite  Madame  Rabourdin  to  your  next  small 
party.  I  must  point  out  that  Madame  de  Camps  is  a  friend 
of  hers;  they  were  at  the  Italiens  together  yesterday,  and  she 
has  been  to  my  knowledge  at  the  Hotel  Firmiani ;  so  you  can 
see  whether  she  is  likely  to  commit  any  solecism  in  a  salon." 

"  Send  an  invitation  to  Madame  Rabourdin,  dear,  and  let 
us  change  the  subject,"  said  the  minister. 

"  So  C^lestine  is  in  my  clutches  !  "  des  Lupeaulx  said  to 
himself,  as  he  went  up  to  his  rooms  for  a  morning  toilette. 


LES  EMPLOYES.  875 

Parisian  households  are  eaten  up  with  a  desire  to  be  in  har- 
mony with  the  luxury  which  surrounds  them  on  all  sides  ; 
those  who  are  wise  enough  to  live  as  their  income  prescribes 
are  in  a  small  minority.  Perhaps  this  failing  is  akin  to  a  very 
French  patriotism,  an  effort  to  preserve  supremacy  in  matters 
of  costume  for  France.  France  lays  down  the  law  to  all 
Europe  in  fashions,  and  everybody  in  the  country  regards  it 
as  a  duty  to  preserve  her  commercial  sceptre,  for  France  rules 
the  fashions  if  Britain  rules  the  waves.  The  patriotic  fervor 
which  leads  the  Frenchman  to  sacrifice  everything  to  "  seem- 
liness  "  (as  d'Aubigne*  said  of  Henri  III.)  causes  an  immense 
amount  of  hard  work  behind  the  scenes  ;  work  that  absorbs  a 
Parisienne's  whole  morning,  especially  if,  like  Mme.  Rabour- 
din,  she  tries  to  live  on  an  income  of  twelve  thousand  livres 
in  a  style  which  many  wealthier  people  would  not  attempt  on 
thirty  thousand. 

So,  every  Friday,  the  day  of  the  weekly  dinner-party,  Mme. 
Rabourdin  used  to  assist  the  housemaid  who  swept  and  dusted 
the  rooms,  for  the  cook  was  dispatched  to  the  market  at  an 
early  hour,  and  the  manservant  was  busy  cleaning  the  silver, 
polishing  the  glasses,  and  arranging  the  table  napkins.  If 
any  ill-advised  caller  had  escaped  the  porter's  vigilance  and 
climbed  the  stairs  to  Mme.  Rabourdin's  abode,  he  would  have 
found  her  in  a  most  unpicturesque  disorder.  Arrayed  in  a 
loose  morning-gown,  with  her  feet  thrust  into  a  pair  of  old 
slippers,  and  her  hair  in  a  careless  knot,  she  was  engaged  in 
trimming  lamps  or  arranging  flowers,  or  hastily  preparing  an 
unromantic  breakfast.  If  the  visitor  had  not  been  previously 
initiated  into  the  mysteries  of  Paris  life,  he  would  certainly 
learn  there  and  then  that  it  is  inexpedient  to  set  foot  behind  the 
scenes  thereof;  before  very  long  he  would  be  held  up  as  an 
example,  he  would  be  capable  of  the  blackest  deeds.  A 
woman  surprised  in  her  morning  mysteries  will  talk  of  his 
stupidity  and  indiscretion,  till  she  ruins  the  intruder.  Indul- 
*  Jean-Henri  Merle  d'Aubigne,  Historian  and  Theologian. 


376  LES  EMPLOYES. 

gent  as  the  Parisienne  may  be  to  curiosity  that  turns  to  her 
profit,  she  is  implacable  to  indiscretion  which  finds  her  at  a 
disadvantage.  Such  a  domiciliary  visit  is  not  so  much  an 
indecent  assault,  to  use  the  language  of  the  police-courts,  as 
flat  burglary,  and  theft  of  the  dearest  treasure  of  all,  to  wit, 
Credit.  A  woman  may  have  no  objection  to  be  discovered 
half-dressed  with  her  hair  about  her  shoulders  ;  if  all  her  hair 
is  her  own,  she  is  a  gainer  by  the  incident  ;  but  no  woman 
cares  to  be  seen  sweeping  out  her  rooms,  there  is  a  loss  of 
"  seemliness  "  in  it. 

Mme.  Rabourdin  was  in  the  thick  of  her  Friday  prepara- 
tions, and  surrounded  by  provisions  fished  up  from  that  ocean, 
the  Great  Market,  when  M.  des  Lupeaulx  made  his  surrepti- 
tious call.  Truly,  the  secretary-general  was  the  last  person 
whom  the  fair  Rabourdin  expected  to  see  ;  so  hearing  his 
boots  creak  on  the  stairs,  she  cried:  "The  hairdresser  al- 
ready!" If  the  sound  of  the  words  struck  unpleasantly  in 
des  Lupeaulx's  ears,  the  sight  of  des  Lupeaulx  was  not  a  whit 
more  agreeable  to  the  lady.  She  took  refuge  in  her  bedroom 
amid  a  terrible  muddle,  a  perfect  Shrovetide  assemblage  of 
motley  furniture  and  heterogeneous  elegance,  which  had  been 
pent  thither  to  be  out  of  sight ;  but  the  negligent  morning- 
dress  proved  so  alluring  that  the  bold  des  Lupeaulx  followed 
the  frightened  fair  one.  A  vague,  indescribable  something 
tantalized  him  ;  glimpses  caught  through  a  half-fastened  slip 
seemed  a  thousand  times  more  enticing  than  a  full  display  of 
every  graceful  curve,  from  the  line  traced  round  the  shoulders 
by  a  low  velvet  bodice  to  the  vanishing  point  of  the  prettiest 
rounded  swan-like  throat  that  ever  lover  kissed  before  a  ball. 
If  your  eyes  rest  on  a  splendidly  developed  bust  set  off  by  full 
dress,  it  suggests  a  comparison  with  the  elaborate  dessert  of 
a  great  dinner ;  but  the  glance  that  steals  under  cambrics 
crumpled  by  slumber  will  find  dainties  there  on  which  to 
feast,  sweets  to  be  relished  like  the  stolen  fruit  that  reddens 
among  the  leaves  upon  the  trellis. 


LES  EMPLOYES.  ZTl 

"Wait!  wait!"  cried  the  fair  lady,  bolting  herself  in 
with  iier  disorder. 

She  rang  for  Therese,  for  the  cook,  for  the  manservant,  for 
her  daughter,  imploring  a  shawl.  She  longed  for  stage 
machinery  to  shift  the  scene  at  the  manager's  whistle.  And 
the  whistle  was  given  and  the  transformation  worked  in  a 
hand's  turn  after  all.  And  behold  a  new  phenomenon ! 
The  room  took  on  a  piquant  air  of  morning  which  harmonized 
with  an  impromptu  toilette,  all  devised  for  the  great  glory  of 
a  woman  who,  in  this  instance,  clearly  rose  superior  to  her 
sex. 

"You!"  she  exclaimed,  "and  at  this  hour!  Whatever 
can  it  be  ?  " 

"The  most  serious  thing  in  the  world,"  returned  des 
Lupeaulx.  "  To-day  we  must  arrive  at  a  clear  understanding 
with  each  other." 

Celestine  looked  straight  through  the  eyeglasses  into  the 
man's  thoughts,  and  understood. 

"It  is  my  chief  weakness,"  said  she,  "  to  be  prodigiously 
fanciful ;  I  do  not  mingle  politics  and  affection,  for  instance; 
let  us  talk  of  politics  and  business,  and  afterward  we  shall 
see.  And  beside,  this  is  not  a  mere  whim  ;  it  is  one  conse- 
quence of  my  artistic  taste  ;  I  cannot  put  discordant  colors 
or  incongruous  things  together;  I  shun  jarring  contrasts. 
We  women  have  a  policy  of  our  own." 

Even  as  she  spoke,  her  pretty  ways  and  the  tones  of  her 
voice  produced  their  effect ;  the  secretary-general's  brutality 
was  giving  place  to  sentimental  courtesy.  She  had  recalled 
him  to  a  sense  of  what  was  due  from  him  as  a  lover.  A 
clever,  pretty  woman  creates  her  own  atmosphere,  as  it  were ; 
nerves  are  relaxed  and  sentiments  softened  in  her  presence. 

"You  do  not  know  what  is  going  on,"  des  Lupeaulx 
returned  abruptly,  for  he  tried  to  persevere  in  his  brutality. 
"Read  that!  " 

Des  Lupeaulx  had  previously  marked  the  paragraphs  in  red 

N 


878  LES  EMPLOYES. 

ink ;  he  now  held  out  the  newspapers  to  the  graceful  woman 
before  him.  As  Celestine  read,  her  shawl  slipped  open  ;  but 
she  was  either  unconscious  of  this  or  successfully  feigned 
unconsciousness.  Des  Lupeaulx  had  reached  the  age  when 
fancies  are  the  more  potent  because  they  pass  so  swiftly ;  but 
if  he  found  it  difficult  to  keep  self-control,  Celestine  also  was 
equally  hard  put  to  it. 

"What!"  said  she.  ''Why,  this  is  dreadful!  Who  is 
this  Baudoyer?" 

"A  jackass,"  returned  des  Lupeaulx;  ''but,  as  you  see, 
he  carries  the  relics,  and  with  a  clever  hand  on  the  bridle  he 
will  reach  his  goal." 

Mme.  Rabourdin's  debts  rose  up  before  her  eyes  and 
dazzled  her ;  she  seemed  to  see  one  lightning  flash  after 
another ;  the  blood  surged  through  her  veins  till  her  ears 
rang  with  the  heavy  pulse  beats ;  she  sat  in  a  stupor,  staring 
with  unseeing  eyes  at  a  bracket  on  the  wall.  Then  she 
turned  to  des  Lupeaulx. 

"But  you  are  true  to  us?"  she  said,  with  a  glance  like  a 
caress,  a  glance  that  was  meant  to  bind  him  to  herself. 

"That  depends,"  he  answered,  returning  her  look  with  an 
inquisitive  glance  that  brought  the  red  into  the  poor  woman's 
face. 

"  If  you  insist  upon  earnest-money,  you  will  lose  the  full 
payment,"  she  said  with  a  laugh.  "  I  imagined  that  you  were 
greater  than  you  are.  And  as  for  you,  you  think  I  am  very 
small,  a  mere  schoolgirl." 

"  You  did  not  understand,"  he  said  meaningly.  "  I  meant 
that  I  cannot  serve  a  man  who  is  going  against  me,  as 
I'Etourdi  thwarts  Mascarille." 

"  What  does  this  mean  ?  " 

"This  will  show  you  that  I  am  great,"  he  said.  And  he 
gave  her  Dutocq's  stolen  list,  pointing  as  he  did  so  to  her 
husband's  shrewd  analysis  of  his  character. 

"Read  that!" 


LES  EMPLOYES.  379 

Celestine  recognized  the  handwriting,  read,  and  turned  pale 
at  this  bludgeon  blow. 

"All  the  departments  are  in  it,"  added  des  Lupeaulx, 

"  But,  fortunately,  no  one  but  you  possesses  a  copy.  I  cannot 
explain  it." 

"The  thief  that  stole  it  is  not  so  simple  that  he  would  not 
take  a  duplicate;  he  is  too  great  a  liar  to  confess  to  the  copy, 
and  too  intelligent  in  his  trade  to  give  it  up.  I  have  not  even 
asked  him  about  it." 

"Who  is  he?" 

"Your  first  draughting  clerk." 

"  Dutocq.  You  are  never  punished  except  for  doing  a 
kindness.     But  he  is  a  dog  that  wants  a  bone,"  she  added. 

"  Do  you  know  what  a  tentative  offer  has  been  held  out  to 
me,  poor  devil  of  a  secretary-general  that  I  am?  " 

"What?" 

"I  owe  a  miserable  thirty  thousand  odd  francs.  You  will 
at  once  form  a  very  poor  opinion  of  me  when  you  know  that 
I  am  not  more  in  debt ;  but,  indeed,  in  this  respect,  I  am 
small  !  Well  and  good.  Baudoyer's  uncle  has  just  bought 
up  my  debts,  and  is  ready,  no  doubt,  to  give  up  my  bills  to 
me. 

"But  all  this  is  infernal." 

"  Not  a  bit  of  it ;  it  is  monarchical  and  religious,  for  the 
grand  almonry  is  mixed  up  in  it " 

"  What  are  you  going  to  do?  " 

"What  are  your  orders?"  he  asked,  holding  out  a  hand 
with  an  adorable  charm  of  manner. 

To  Celestine  he  was  no  longer  plain,  nor  old,  nor  frosted 
with  powder,  nor  a  secretary-general,  nor  anything  unclean  ; 
but  she  did  not  give  him  her  hand.  In  her  drawing-room  she 
would  have  allowed  him  to  take  it  a  hundred  times  in  the 
course  of  an  evening;  but  such  a  proceeding  in  the  morning, 
when  they  were  alone,  was  as  good  as  a  promise  ;  it  was  rather 
too  decisive — it  might  lead  her  further  than  she  meant  to  go. 


380  LES  EMPLOYi.S. 

"And  people  say  that  statesmen  have  no  hearts  !  "  she  cried, 
trying  to  soften  the  refusal  with  a  gracious  speech.  "  That 
frightened  me,"  she  added,  with  the  most  innocent  air  in  the 
world. 

"  What  a  slander  !  "  returned  des  Lupeaulx.  "  One  of  the 
most  impassive  of  diplomatists,  a  man  that  has  kept  power  ever 
since  he  was  born,  has  just  married  an  actress'  daughter,  and 
imposed  her  upon  the  most  rigorous  of  all  Courts  in  the  matter 
of  quarterings." 

"And  you  will  support  us?" 

"  I  work  the  nominations.     But  no  trickery." 

She  held  out  her  hand  for  him  to  kiss,  and  gave  him  a 
light  tap  on  the  cheek. 

"  You  are  mine,"  she  said. 

Des  Lupeaulx  admired  that  speech.  (Indeed,  the  coxcomb 
told  the  story  that  evening  at  the  opera,  after  his  own  fashion, 
as  follows  :  ".\  woman  did  not  wish  to  tell  a  man  that  she  was 
his,  an  admission  that  a  well-bred  woman  never  makes,  so 
she  said  :  '  You  are  mine  !  '  What  do  you  think  of  the  eva- 
sion?") 

"But  you  must  be  my  ally,"  he  began.  "Your  husband 
said  something  to  the  minister  about  a  scheme  of  adminis- 
tration, and  this  list,  in  which  I  am  handled  so  gently,  is 
connected  with  it.  Find  out,  and  let  me  know  this  even- 
ing." 

"  It  shall  be  done,"  said  she.  She  saw  no  great  importance 
in  the  matter  that  had  brought  des  Lupeaulx  to  her  house  at 
such  an  early  hour. 

"The  hairdresser,  madame,"  announced  the  housemaid. 

"He  has  kept  me  waiting  a  very  long  time!"  she  said. 
"I  do  not  know  how  I  should  have  come  through  if  he  had 
been  any  later,"  she  thought  within  herself. 

"You  do  not  know  liow  far  my  devotion  goes,"  said  des 
Lupeaulx,  rising  to  his  feet.  "You  are  going  to  be  invited  to 
the  countess'  next  special  and  intimate  party " 


LES  EMPLOYES.  381 

"  Oh  !  you  are  an  angel,"  she  said  ;  "  and  I  see  how  much 

you  love  me.     You  love  me  intelligently." 

"This  evening,  dear  child,  I  am  going  to  the  opera  to  find 
out  who  these  journalists  are  that  are  conspiring  for  Baudoyer ; 
and  we  will  measure  weapons." 

"  Yes,  but  you  will  dine  here,  will  you  not  ?  I  have  ordered 
the  things  you  like." 

"All  this  is  so  much  like  love,"  des  Lupeaulx  said  to  him- 
self as  he  went  downstairs,  "so  much  like  love,  that  it  would 
be  pleasant  to  be  deceived  in  such  a  way  for  a  long  while. 
But  if  she  is  laughing  at  me,  I  shall  find  it  out.  1  have  the 
most  ingenious  of  snares  ready  for  her,  so  that  I  may  read  her 
very  heart  before  I  sign.  Ah  !  you  kittens,  we  know  you  ; 
for,  after  all,  women  are  just  as  we  are.  Twenty-eight  years 
old  and  virtuous,  and  here  in  the  Rue  Duphot  !  It  is  a  rare 
piece  of  luck  which  is  well  worth  all  the  trouble  of  its  culti- 
vation." 

And  this  eligible  butterfly  fluttered  away  down  the  stair- 
case. 

"Oh  dear !  that  man  yonder  without  his  spectacles  must  look 
very  funny  in  his  dressing-gown  when  his  hair  is  powdered  !  " 
Celestine  was  saying  to  herself  meanwhile.  '•  He  has  ihe 
harpoon  in  his  back ;  he  is  going  to  tow  me  at  last  to  my 
goal — the  minister's  house.  He  has  played  his  part  in  my 
comedy." 

When  Rabourdin  at  five  o'clock  came  home  to  dress,  his 
wife  went  into  the  room  and  brought  him  the  list.  It  seemed 
like  the  slipper  in  the  Arabian  Nights — the  unlucky  man  was 
fated  to  meet  it  everywhere. 

"  Who  put  that  in  your  hands?  "  Rabourdin  asked  in  amaze- 
ment. 

"  Monsieur  des  Lupeaulx." 

"  Has  lie  been  here  ?  "  asked  Rabourdin,  A  guilty  woman 
would   surely  have    turned   pale   beneath    the   look   that   he 


382  LES  EMPLOYES. 

gave  her,  but  his  wife  met  it  with  marble  brows  and  laughing 
eyes. 

"Yes,  and  he  is  coming  here  again  to  dinner,"  said  she. 
"  Why  do  you  look  so  horrified  ?  " 

"Dear,"  said  Rabourdin,  "I  have  given  des  Lupeaulx 
mortal  offense.  Men  of  that  sort  never  forgive  ;  and  he  is 
caressing  me  !     Do  you  think  that  I  cannot  see  why  ?  " 

"It  seems  to  me  that  he  has  a  very  discriminating  taste," 
she  said.  "  I  cannot  blame  him  for  it.  After  all,  I  know  of 
nothing  more  flattering  to  a  woman's  vanity  than  the  knowl- 
edge that  she  stimulates  a  jaded  palate." 

**A  truce  to  jesting,  Celestine  !  Spare  an  overburdened 
man.  I  cannot  speak  with  the  minister,  and  my  honor  is  at 
stake." 

"  Oh  dear,  no  !  Dutocq  shall  have  the  promise  of  a  place, 
and  you  will  be  head  of  the  division." 

"I  see  what  you  mean,  darling,"  said  Rabourdin;  "but 
you  are  playing  a  game  that  is  quite  as  dishonoring  as  if  you 
meant  it  in  earnest.  A  lie  is  a  lie,  and  an  honest  woman 
cannot " 

"  Pray  let  me  make  use  of  the  weapons  that  they  turn 
against  us." 

"  Celestine,  when  that  man  sees  how  foolishly  he  has  fallen 
into  the  snare  set  for  him,  he  will  be  all  the  more  furious 
against  me." 

"  And  how  if  I  upset  him?  " 

Rabourdin  stared  at  his  wife  in  amazement. 

"I  am  only  thinking  of  your  advancement,"  continued 
Celestine,  "  and  it  is  time  I  did  so,  my  poor  love.  But  you 
are  taking  the  sporting-dog  for  the  game,"  she  added  after  a 
pause.  "  In  a  few  days'  time  des  Lupeaulx  will  have  fulfilled 
his  mission  very  sufficiently.  While  you  are  trying  to  say  a 
word  to  the  minister,  and  before  you  can  do  so  much  as  see 
him,  /  shall  have  had  a  talk  with  him.  You  have  strained 
every  nerve  to  bring  out  this  scheme  that  you  have  kept  from 


LES  EMPLOYES.  383 

me ;  and  in  three  months  your  wife  will  have  done  more  than 
you  have  done  in  six  years.  Tell  me  about  this  great  project 
of  yours." 

So  Rabourdin,  as  he  shaved  himself,  began  to  explain  his 
scheme,  first  obtaining  a  promise  that  his  wife  would  not  say 
a  single  word  of  his  work ;  warning  her,  at  the  same  time, 
that  to  give  des  Lupeaulx  any  idea  of  it  would  be  to  give  the 
cream-jug  to  the  cat.  But  at  the  fifth  sentence  Celcstine 
interrupted  him. 

"Rabourdin,  why  did  you  not  speak  to  me  about  it?" 
she  said.  "Why,  you  would  have  saved  yourself  useless 
trouble.  I  can  imagine  that  one  may  be  blinded  by  an  idea 
for  a  minute ;  but  for  six  or  seven  years  ! — that  I  cannot  con- 
ceive. You  want  to  reduce  the  estimates  ?  It  is  a  common- 
place, penny-wise  economy  !  Rather  we  should  aim  at  rais- 
ing the  income  to  two  milliards.  France  would  be  twice  as 
great.  A  new  system  would  be  this  plan  cried  up  by  Mon- 
sieur de  Nucingen,  a  loan  that  would  send  an  impulse  through 
trade  throughout  the  whole  country.  The  poorest  exchequer  is 
the  one  that  has  most  francs  lying  idle.  It  is  the  finance 
minister's  mission  to  fling  money  out  of  the  windows,  and  it 
comes  in  at  his  cellars.  And  you  would  have  him  accumulate 
specie  !  Why,  instead  of  reducing  the  number  of  posts 
under  Government,  you  ought  to  increase  them  !  Instead  of 
paying  off  the  national  debt,  you  should  increase  the  number 
of  fund-holders.  If  the  Bourbons  mean  to  reign  in  peace, 
they  ought  to  have  fund-holders  in  every  township ;  and,  of 
all  things,  they  should  beware  of  raising  foreign  loans,  for 
foreigners  will  be  sure  some  day  to  require  the  repayment  of  the 
capital,  whereas  if  none  but  Frenchmen  have  money  invested 
in  the  Funds,  neitlier  France  nor  national  credit  will  perish. 
That  saved  England.  This  plan  of  yours  is  a  little  store- 
keeper's scheme.  An  ambitious  man  should  only  present 
himself  in  the  character  of  a  second  Law,  without  Law's  ill- 
luck  ;  he  should  explain  the  resources  of  credit  3  he  should 


384  LES  EMPLOYES. 

show  that  we  ought  not  to  sink  money  in  extinguishing  prin- 
cipal, but  in  payment  of  interest,  as  the  English  do " 

"  Come,  Celestine,"  said  Rabourdin,  "jumble  up  ideas 
together,  make  playthings  of  them,  and  contradict  yourself! 
I  am  used  to  it.  But  do  not  criticise  a  piece  of  work  before 
you  know  what  it  is." 

"  Is  there  any  need  to  know  what  it  is,  when  the  gist  of  the 
matter  is  to  carry  on  the  administration  in  France  with  six 
thousand  ofificials  instead  of  twenty  thousand  ?  Why,  my 
dear,  even  if  the  scheme  were  invented  by  a  man  of  genius,  a 
King  of  France  would  lose  his  crown  if  he  attempted  to  carry 
it  into  effect.  You  may  subjugate  an  aristocracy  by  striking 
off  a  few  heads,  but  you  cannot  quell  a  hydra  with  a  thousand 
claws.  No,  no  ;  insignificant  folk  cannot  be  crushed,  they 
lie  too  flat  beneath  the  foot.  And  do  you  mean  to  move  all 
these  men  through  the  ministers  ?  Between  ourselves,  they 
are  very  poor  creatures.  You  may  shift  men's  interests,  you 
cannot  shift  men  ;  they  make  too  much  outcry,  whereas  the 
francs  are  dumb." 

"But,  Celestine,  if  you  talk  all  the  time,  and  if  you  aim 
your  wit  wide  of  the  mark,  we  shall  never  arrive  at  an  under- 
standing  " 

"Ah  !  I  see  the  drift  of  that  analysis  of  men's  administra- 
tive ability,"  she  went  on,  without  listening  to  her  husband. 
"Goodness,  you  have  been  sharpening  the  axe  for  yourself. 
Sainte-Vierge  !  why  did  you  not  consult  me?  I  would  at  any 
rate  have  prevented  you  from  putting  a  single  line  on  paper ; 
or  at  the  worst,  if  you  wished  to  have  the  memorandum,  I 
would  have  copied  it  myself,  and  it  should  never  have  left 
this  house.  Oh  !  dear,  why  did  you  say  nothing  to  me  about 
it?  Just  like  a  man  !  A  man  can  sleep  beside  his  wife  and 
keep  a  secret  for  seven  years  !  He  can  hide  himself  from  her, 
poor  thing,  for  seven  years  and  doubt  her  devotion." 

"But,"  protested  Rabourdin,  "whenever  I  have  tried  to 
discuss  anything  with  you,  for  these  eleven  years,   you  have 


LES  EMPLOYES.  385 

cut  me  short,  and  immediately  brought  out  your  own  ideas 
instead.     You  know  nothing  of  my  work." 


"Nothing?     I  know  all  about  it. 


>) 


"Then,  pray,  tell  me  about  it,"  cried  Rabourdin,  losing 
his  temper  for  the  first  time  since  his  marriage. 

"There  !  it  is  half-past  six;  shave  yourself  and  dress,"  she 
retorted,  answering  him  after  the  wont  of  women  when  pressed 
upon  a  point  on  which  they  are  bound  to  be  silent;  "  I  will 
finish  dressing,  and  we  will  postpone  the  argument,  for  I  do 
not  want  to  be  worried  on  my  reception  day.  Oh,  dear  me, 
poor  man,"  she  said  to  herself  as  she  went,  "  to  think  that  he 
should  toil  for  seven  years  to  bring  about  his  own  ruin  !  And 
put  no  trust  in  his  wife  !  " 

She  turned  back. 

"  If  you  had  listened  to  me  in  time,"  she  said^  "  you  would 
not  have  interfered  on  behalf  of  your  first  clerk  ;  he,  no  doubt, 
took  the  copies  of  that  unlucky  list.     Farewell,  clever  man  !  " 

But  seeing  her  husband's  pain  in  his  tragic  attitude,  she  felt 
that  she  had  gone  too  far;  she  sprang  to  him,  and  put  her 
handsome  arms  about  him  lovingly,  all  covered  with  soap  as 
he  was. 

"  Dear  Xavier,  do  not  be  vexed,"  she  said,  "  this  evening 
we  will  go  through  your  scheme ;  you  shall  talk  at  your  ease, 
and  I  am  going  to  listen  as  long  and  as  attentively  as  you 
please  !  Is  that  nice  of  me?  There,  I  do  not  ask  better  than 
to  be  Mahomet's  wife." 

She  began  to  laugh,  and  Rabourdin  could  not  help  laugh- 
ing too,  for  Celestine's  mouth  was  white  with  soap,  while 
there  was  a  wealth  of  the  truest  and  most  perdurable  affection 
in  the  tones  of  her  voice. 

"Go  and  dress,  little  one;  and  of  all  things,  not  a  word 
of  this  to  des  Lupeaulx  !  Give  me  your  promise.  That  is  the 
only  penance  I  require " 

^^  Require  ?     Then  I  won't  make  any  promise  at  all." 

"  Come,  Celestine,  I  spoke  seriously  though  I  was  joking." 
25 


386  LES  EMPLOYES. 

"To-night  your  secretary-general  will  know  the  foes  with 
whom  we  must  fight;  and  I  know  whom  to  attack." 

"  Whom?  "  asked  Rabourdin. 

"  The  minister,"  she  said,  growing  two  feet  taller  for  her 
words. 

But  in  spite  of  Celestine's  winning  charm,  a  few  painful 
thoughts  occurred  to  Rabourdin  in  spite  of  himself,  and  dark- 
ened his  forehead. 

"When  will  she  learn  to  appreciate  me?"  he  thought. 
"  She  did  not  even  understand  that  all  this  work  was  done  for 
her  sake.  What  waywardness  !  and  how  intelligent  she  is  ! 
If  I  were  not  married,  I  should  be  yery  well  off  and  in  a  high 
position  by  this  time.  I  should  have  put  by  five  thousand 
francs  a  year  out  of  my  salary  ;  and  by  investing  the  money 
carefully,  I  should  have  an  independent  income  of  ten  thou- 
sand francs  at  this  day.     I  should  be  a  bachelor ;  I  should 

stand  a  chance  to  become  somebody,  through  a  marriage 

Yes"  (he  interrupted  himself),  "but  I  have  Celestine  and 
the  two  children." 

He  fell  back  upon  his  happiness.  Even  in  the  happiest 
married  life,  there  must  always  be  some  moments  of  regret. 

He  went  to  the  drawing-room  and  looked  round. 

"There  are  not  two  women  in  Paris  who  can  manage  as 
she  does.  All  this  on  twelve  thousand  livres  a  year!"  he 
thought,  as  he  glanced  at  the  jars  full  of  flowers,  and  thought 
of  the  coming  pleasure  of  gratified  vanity.  "  She  was  meant 
to  be  a  minister's  wife.  And  when  I  think  that  my  minister's 
wife  is  of  no  use  to  him — she  looks  like  a  stout,  homely  house- 
wife— and  when  she  goes  to  the  Tuileries,  to  other  people's 
houses,  she " 

He  compressed  his  lips.  A  very  busy  man's  ideas  of 
housekeeping  are  so  vague  that  it  is  easy  to  persuade  him 
to  believe  that  a  hundred  thousand  francs  will  do  everything 
or  nothing. 

But  though  des  Lupeaulx  was  impatiently  expected,  though 


LES  EMPLOYES.  387 

the  dinner  had  been  designed  to  tickle  the  palate  of  a  professed 
epicure,  he  only  came  in  at  midnight,  at  which  hour  con- 
versation is  wont  to  grow  more  personal  and  confidential. 
Andoche  Finot,  journalist,  was  there  likewise. 

"I  know  all  about  it,"  began  des  Lupeaulx,  when  he  was 
comfortably  settled  on  the  settee  by  the  fireside,  with  a  cup 
of  tea  in  his  hand  ;  and  Mme.  Rabourdin  stood  before  him 
holding  out  a  plate  full  of  sandwiches  and  slices  of  the  weighty 
substance  not  inappropriately  known  as  pound-cake.  "  Finot, 
my  dear  and  intelligent  friend,  you  may  do  our  gracious  Queen 
a  service  by  letting  loose  some  of  your  pack  on  some  men 
whom  I  am  going  to  mention."  Then  turning  to  M.  Rabour- 
din, and  lowering  his  voice  so  that  the  words  should  not 
travel  beyond  the  three  persons  to  whom  they  were  addressed, 
he  continued — "  You  have  the  money-lenders  and  the  clergy, 
capital  and  the  church,  against  you.  The  paragraph  in  the 
Liberal  paper  was  inserted  at  the  instance  of  an  old  bill-dis- 
counter; the  proprietors  lay  under  some  obligation  to  him, 
and  the  little  fellow  that  actually  did  it  did  not  think  that  it 
mattered  very  much.  The  whole  staff  of  the  paper  is  to  be 
reconstituted  in  three  days ;  we  shall  get  over  that.  The 
Royalist  Opposition  (for,  thanks  to  Monsieur  de  Chateau- 
briand, we  now  have  a  Royalist  Opposition,  which  is  to  say, 
that  there  are  Royalists  half-way  over  to  the  Liberals ;  but  do 
not  let  us  talk  of  mighty  matters  in  politics) — the  Royal 
Opposition,  I  say,  hating  Charles  X.  with  a  deadly  hate,  have 
promised  their  support  to  you  if  we  will  pass  one  of  their 
amendments.  All  my  batteries  are  in  the  field.  If  they  try 
to  force  Baudoyer  upon  us,  we  will  say  to  the  grand  almonry : 
'  Such  and  such  newspapers  and  Messrs.  So-and-So  will  attack 
this  law  that  you  want  to  pass,  and  you  will  have  the  whole  press 
against  you  '  (for  the  Ministerial  papers  under  my  control  shall 
be  deaf  and  dumb  ;  and  as  they  are  pretty  much  deaf  and 
dumb  already — eh,  Finot? — that  will  give  them  no  difficulty). 
'  Nominate  Rabourdin,  and  you  will  have  public  opinion  with 


388  LES  EMPLOYES. 

you.'  To  think  of  the  poor  simple  provincials  that  intrench 
themselves  in  their  armchairs  by  the  fireside  and  rejoice  over 
the  independence  of  the  spirited  organs  of  public  opinion  ! 
Ha!  ha!" 

"He!  he!  he!"  chuckled  Finot. 

"So  be  quite  easy,"  continued  des  Lupeaulx.  "I  ar- 
ranged it  all  this  evening.  The  grand  almonry  will  give 
way." 

"I  would  rather  have  given  up  all  hope  and  have  had 
you  here  at  dinner,"  Celestine  whispered,  and  the  look  of 
reproach  in  her  eyes  might  easily  have  been  taken  for  a  love- 
distraught  glance. 

"  Here  is  something  that  will  obtain  my  pardon,"  returned 
he,  and  he  gave  her  the  invitation  for  the  party  on  Tuesday. 
Celestine's  face  lighted  up  with  the  reddest  glow  of  pleasure, 
as  she  opened  the  envelope.  No  delight  can  be  compared 
with  the  joy  of  vanity  triumphant. 

"Do  you  know  what  a  Tuesday  is?"  continued  des  Lu- 
peaulx, with  an  air  of  mystery ;  "  it  is  an  inner  circle ;  it  is  to 
our  department  what  the  petit-chateau  is  to  the  Court.  You 
will  be  in  the  very  centre.  The  Comtesse  Feraud  will  be  there 
(she  is  still  in  favor  in  spite  of  the  death  of  Louis  XVIIL); 
Delphine  de  Nucingen,  Mme.  de  Listom^re,  and  the  Marquise 
d'Espard  are  invited,  so  is  your  dear  de  Camps;  I  sent  the 
invitation  myself,  so  that  you  might  find  a  supporter  in  her 
in  case  the  other  women  should  *  black-ball '  you.  I  should 
like  to  see  you  among  them." 

Celestine  tossed  her  head  ;  she  looked  like  a  thoroughbred 
before  the  race.  Again  she  read  the  card,  as  Baudoyer  and 
Saillard  had  read  their  paragraphs  in  the  paper ;  and,  like 
them,  she  could  not  grasp  the  meaning  of  the  words. 

"  This  first,  and  some  day  the  Tuileries  !  "  she  said,  turning 
to  des  Lupeaulx  with  such  ambition  and  confidence  in  her 
tone  and  manner  that  she  struck  dismay  into  him  as  he  looked 
at  her. 


LES  EMPLOYES.  389 

"How  if  I  should  only  be  a  stepping-stone  for  her?"  he 
asked  himself. 

He  rose  to  his  feet  and  went  to  her  bedroom  ;  she  followed, 
for  she  understood  by  his  sign  that  he  wished  to  speak  with 
her  in  private. 

"  Well,  and  the  scheme?"  he  began. 

"  Pooh  !  an  honest  man's  folly  !  He  wants  to  put  down 
fifteen  thousand  employes  and  keep  a  staff  of  five  or  six  thou- 
sand. You  could  not  imagine  a  more  monstrous  absurdity ; 
I  will  give  you  his  memoranda  to  read  when  they  are  copied 
out.  He  is  quite  in  earnest.  He  made  his  analytical  cata- 
logue with  the  best  of  motives.     The  poor,  dear  man  !  " 

Des  Lupeaulx  felt  the  more  reassured  because  genuine 
laughter  accompanied  the  light  contemptuous  words;  a  lie 
would  not  have  deceived  him,  he  was  too  old  a  hand,  but 
Celestine  was  sincere  while  she  thus  spoke. 

"  But,  after  all,  there  is  something  at  the  bottom  of  it  all," 
he  rejoined. 

"  Oh,  well,  he  wants  to  do  away  with  the  land-tax  and  re- 
place it  by  a  tax  upon  articles  of  consumption," 

"  Why,  Francois  Keller  and  Nucingen  brought  forward  an 
almost  identical  plan  a  year  ago  ;  and  the  minister  is  thinking 
of  removing  the  burden  from  the  land." 

"There!  I  told  him  that  there  was  nothing  new  in  the 
idea,"  laughed  Celestine. 

"Yes;  but  if  he  and  the  great  financier  of  the  age,  the 
Napoleon  of  finance  (I  can  say  so  between  ourselves),  if  he 
and  Nucingen  have  hit  upon  the  same  idea,  he  must  at  any 
rate  have  some  notion  of  the  way  of  carrying  it  out." 

"The  whole  thing  is  commonplace,"  slie  said,  pursing  up 
her  lips  disdainfully.  "  He  wants  to  govern  France  (just 
think  of  it !)  with  five  or  six  thousand  employes  ;  when,  on 
the  contrary,  it  ought  to  be  to  the  interest  of  every  person  in 
the  country  to  maintain  the  present  government." 

Des  Lupeaulx  seemed  relieved  to  find  that  the  chief  clerk, 


S90  LES  EMPLOYES. 

whom  he  took  for  a  man  of  extraordinary  ability,  was  a  medi- 
ocrity after  all. 

"Are  you  quite  sure  of  the  appointment?  Do  you  care  to 
take  a  piece  of  woman's  advice?  "  asked  she. 

"  You  women  understand  the  art  of  polite  treachery  better 
than  we  do,"  said  des  Lupeaulx,  shaking  his  head. 

"Very  well;  say  '  Baudoyer '  at  Court  and  at  the  Grand 
Almonry,  so  as  to  lull  suspicion ;  but  at  the  last  moment  write 
'Rabourdin.'  " 

"  Some  women  say  '  Yes  '  so  long  as  they  need  a  man,  and 
'  No'  when  he  has  served  their  turn,"  remarked  des  Lupeaulx. 

"I  know  them,"  Celestine  answered,  laughing.  "But 
they  are  very  silly,  for  in  politics  you  must  come  across  the 
same  people  again  and  again.  It  is  all  very  well  with  fools, 
but  you  are  a  clever  man.  In  my  opinion,  it  is  the  greatest 
possible  mistake  in  life  to  quarrel  with  a  really  clever  man." 

"No,"  said  des  Lupeaulx,  "for  he  will  forgive.  There  is 
no  danger  except  with  petty  rancorous  minds  that  have 
nothing  to  do  but  plan  revenge,  and  I  spend  my  life  on 
that." 

When  every  one  had  gone,  Rabourdin  stayed  in  his  wife's 
room,  begged  her  to  listen  to  him  for  once,  and  took  the 
opportunity  of  explaining  his  scheme.  He  made  her  under- 
stand that  he  had  no  intention  of  diminishing  the  estimates; 
on  the  contrary,  he  gave  a  list  of  public  enterprises  to  be 
carried  out  with  the  public  money ;  private  enterprise  or 
local  improvements  should  be  subsidized  by  a  government 
grant  of  one-third  or  one-fourth  of  the  total  outlay,  and 
these  grants  would  set  money  in  circulation.  In  short,  he 
made  it  plain  to  his  wife  that  his  scheme  was  not  so  much  a 
theory  on  paper  as  a  practicable  plan  to  be  worked  out  in 
hundreds  of  ways.  Celestine's  enthusiasm  grew ;  she  sprang 
to  her  husband  and  put  her  arms  about  him,  and  sat  on  his 
knee  beside  the  fire. 

"And  so,  after  all,"  she  said,  "I  have  found  the  husband 


LES  EMPLOYES.  391 

of  whom  I  dreamed.  My  ignorance  of  your  worth  saved  you 
from  des  Lupeaulx's  clutches.  I  slandered  you  to  him  amaz- 
ingly, and  in  good  earnest  too." 

There  were  happy  tears  in  Rabourdin's  eyes.  And  so  at 
last  he  had  his  day  of  triumph.  He  had  undertaken  it  all  to 
please  his  wife ;  he  was  a  great  man  in  the  eyes  of  his  public  ! 

"And  for  any  one  who  knows  how  good  and  kind  and 
loving  and  equable  you  are,  you  are  ten  times  greater  !  But 
a  man  of  genius  is  always  more  or  less  of  a  child,  and  you 
are  a  child,"  she  said,  "a  dearly  loved  child." 

She  drew  out  her  invitation  card  from  its  hiding-place  and 
showed  it  to  him — 

"  This  is  what  I  wanted,"  she  continued.  "  Des  Lupeaulx 
has  brought  me  in  contact  with  his  excellency,  and  his  ex- 
cellency shall  be  my  servant  for  a  while,  even  if  he  is  made 
of  bronze." 

Next  day  Celestine  was  absorbed  in  preparation  for  her  in- 
troduction into  the  inner  circle.  It  was  to  be  her  great  day, 
her  success.  Never  did  courtesan  take  more  pains  with  her- 
self than  this  matron  took.  Never  was  dressmaker  more  tor- 
mented, more  sensible  how  much  depends  upon  her  art, 
Mme.  Rabourdin  overlooked  nothing,  in  short.  She  went 
herself  to  choose  a  carriage  for  the  occasion,  so  that  her 
carriage  should  be  neither  old-fashioned,  nor  insolent,  nor 
suggestive  of  the  city  madame.  Her  servant,  as  became  the 
servant  of  a  good  house,  was  to  look  like  a  gentleman. 

Then,  about  ten  o'clock  on  the  great  Tuesday  evening, 
Mme.  Rabourdin  emerged  in  an  exquisite  mourning  toilet.  In 
her  hair  she  wore  bunches  of  jet  grapes,  of  the  finest  work- 
manship, part  of  a  complete  set  of  ornaments  ordered  at 
Fossin's  by  an  Englishwoman  who  went  away  without  taking 
them.  The  leaves  were  thin  flakes  of  stamped  iron,  light  as 
real  vine-leaves,  and  the  artist  had  not  forgotten  the  little 
graceful  tendrils  that  clung  among  her  curls,  as  the  vine- 
tendrils  cling  to  every  branch.     The  bracelets  and  earrings 


392  LES  employe's. 

were  of  "Berlin  iron,"  as  it  is  called;  but  the  delicate 
arabesques  from  Vienna  might  have  been  made  by  the  hands 
of  fairies  for  some  task-mistress,  some  Carabosse  with  a  passion 
for  collecting  ants'  eyes,  or  for  spinning  pieces  of  stuff  to 
pack  into  a  hazelnut.  Celestine's  dress  had  been  carefully 
cut  to  bring  out  all  the  grace  of  a  slender  figure,  which 
looked  yet  more  slender  in  black.  The  curves  all  stopped  short 
at  the  line  round  the  neck,  for  she  wore  no  shoulder-straps ; 
at  every  movement  she  seemed  about  to  emerge  like  a  butter- 
fly from  the  sheath  ;  yet,  through  the  dressmaker's  skill,  the 
gown  clung  to  the  lines  of  her  figure.  The  material  was  not 
yet  known  in  Paris;  it  was  a  mousseline  de  laine,  an  "  adora- 
ble "  stuff  that  afterward  became  the  rage.  Indeed,  the  suc- 
cess outlasted  the  fashion  in  France ;  for  the  practical  advan- 
tages of  a  thin  woolen  material,  which  saves  the  expense  of 
washing,  injured  the  cotton-spinning  industry  and  revolution- 
ized the  Rouen  trade.  Celestine's  feet  were  daintily  shod  in 
Turkey  satin  slippers  (for  bright  satin  could  not  be  worn  in 
mourning)  and  fine  thin  stockings. 

Celestine  looked  very  lovely  thus  dressed.  Her  complex- 
ion was  brilliant  and  softly  colored,  thanks  to  tlie  reviving 
influence  of  a  bran  bath.  Hope  had  flooded  her  eyes,  her 
quick  intelligence  sparkled  in  them ;  she  looked  like  the 
woman  of  a  superior  order,  of  whom  des  Lupeaulx  spoke  with 
such  pride  and  pleasure.  She  knew  how  to  enter  a  room  ;  all 
women  will  appreciate  the  meaning  of  that  phrase.  She  bowed 
gracefully  to  the  minister's  wife,  deference  and  dignity  blended 
in  the  right  proportion  in  her  manner;  and  wore  her  air  of 
majesty  without  giving  off'ense,  for  every  fair  woman  is  a 
queen.  With  the  minister  she  used  the  pretty  insolence  that 
women  are  wont  to  assume  with  any  male  creature,  were  he  a 
grand-duke.  And  as  she  took  her  seat,  she  reconnoitred  the 
ground.  She  found  herself  in  a  small,  carefully  chosen  circle 
in  which  women  can  measure  each  other  and  form  accurate 
judgments  ;  the  lightest  word  reverberates  in  all  ears,  every 


LES  EMPLOYES.  393 

glance  makes  an  impression,  and  conversation  becomes  a  duel 
before  witnesses.  Any  remark  pitched  in  the  ordinary  key 
sounds  flat ;  and  good  talk  is  quietly  accepted  as  a  matter  of 
course  at  that  intellectual  level.  Rabourdin  betook  himself 
to  an  adjoining  card-room,  and  there  remained,  planted  on 
both  feet,  to  watch  the  play,  which  proves  that  he  was  not 
wanting  in  sense. 

"  My  dear,"  said  the  Marquise  d'Espard,  turning  to  the 
Comtesse  Feraud,*  Louis  XVlII.'s  last  mistress,  "  Paris  is 
unique.  Such  women  as  these  start  up  in  it  quite  unexpectedly 
from  no  one  knows  where,  and  seemingly  they  have  the  will 
and  the  power  to  do  anything " 

"And  she  has  the  will  and  the  power  to  do  anything," 
said  des  Lupeaulx,  bridling  as  he  spoke. 

The  crafty  Celestine,  meanwhile,  was  paying  court  to  the 
minister's  wife.  Drilled  by  des  Lupeaulx  on  the  previous 
day,  she  knew  all  the  countess'  weaknesses  and  flattered  them, 
without  seeming  to  touch  upon  them.  And  she  was  silent  too 
at  the  right  moment ;  for  des  Lupeaulx,  in  spite  of  his  in- 
fatuation, had  noticed  Celestine's  shortcomings,  and  warned 
her  against  them.  "  Of  all  things,  do  not  talk  too  much  !  " 
he  had  said  the  evening  before.  'Twas  an  extraordinary  proof 
of  attachment.  Bertrand  Barrdre  left  behind  him  the  sublime 
maxim:  "  Never  interrupt  a  woman  with  advice  while  she  is 
dancing;"  which,  with  the  supplementary  apophthegm  here 
subjoined  :  "  Do  not  find  fault  with  a  woman  for  scattering 
her  pearls,"  may  be  said  to  complete  this  article  of  the  code 
feminine.  The  conversation  became  general.  From  time  to 
time  Mme.  Rabourdin  put  in  a  word,  much  as  a  well-trained 
cat  touches  her  mistress'  lace  with  sheathed  claws.  The  min- 
ister's heart  was  not  very  susceptible ;  in  the  matter  of  gal- 
lantry, no  statesman  of  the  Restoration  was  more  accomjjlished; 
the  Opposition  "  Miroir,"  the  "  Pandore,"  and  the  "  Figaro  " 
could  not  reproach  him  with  the  faintest  acceleration  of  the 

*  Wife  of  "  Colonel  Chabert,"  whicli  see. 


394  LES  EMPLOYES. 

pulse.  His  mistress  was  "  L'Etoile;  "  strange  to  say,  she  had 
been  faithful  in  adversity,  and  probably  was  reaping  the  bene- 
fit even  at  that  moment.  This  Mme.  Rabourdin  knew,  but 
she  knew  also  that  people  change  their  minds  in  old  castles, 
so  she  set  herself  to  make  the  minister  jealous  of  such  good 
fortune  as  des  Lupeaulx  appeared  to  enjoy.  At  that  moment 
des  Lupeaulx  was  expatiating  upon  Celestine,  for  the  benefit 
of  the  Marquise  d'Espard,  Mme.  de  Nucingen,  and  the  coun- 
tess ;  he  was  trying  to  make  them  understand  that  Mme.  Ra- 
bourdin must  be  admitted  into  their  coalition  ;  and  Mme.  de 
Camps,  the  fourth  in  the  quartette  of  listeners,  was  supporting 
him.  At  the  end  of  an  hour  the  minister  had  been  well 
stroked  down  \  he  was  pleased  with  Mme.  Rabourdin's  wit, 
and  she  had  charmed  his  wife  ;  indeed,  the  countess  was  so 
enchanted  with  this  siren  that  she  had  just  asked  her  to  come 
whenever  she  pleased. 

"For  your  husband  will  very  soon  be  head  of  the  division, 
my  dear,"  she  had  said,  "and  the  minister  intends  to  bring 
both  the  divisions  under  one  head,  and  then  you  will  be  one 
of  us." 

His  excellency  took  Mme.  Rabourdin  to  see  one  of  the 
rooms.  His  suite  of  apartments  was  famous  in  those  days,  for 
Opposition  journalism  had  made  itself  ridiculous  by  de- 
nouncing the  lavish  display  therein.  He  gave  his  arm  to  the 
lady. 

"  Indeed,  madame,  you  really  ought  to  favor  us,  the 
countess  and  myself,  by  coming  frequently "  and  his  ex- 
cellency brought  out  his  ministerial  pretty  but  meaningless 
speeches. 

"But,  raonseigneur,"  demurred  Celestine,  with  one  of  the 
glances  that  women  keep  for  emergencies  ;  "  but,  monseigneur, 
that  depends  upon  you,  it  seems  to  me." 

"How?" 

"  Why,  you  can  give  me  the  right  to  do  so." 

"Explain  yourself." 


LES  EMPLOYES.  395 


IC 


No.  When  I  came  here,  I  said  to  myself  that  I  would 
not  have  the  bad  taste  to  solicit  your  interest." 

"  Pray,  speak  !  Placets  of  this  sort  are  never  out  of  place," 
the  minister  answered,  laughing.  "And,"  he  added,  "noth- 
ing amuses  your  seriously  minded  men  so  much  as  this  kind 
of  nonsense." 

"Very  well;  it  is  rather  absurd  of  a  chief  clerk's  wife  to 
come  here  often,  but  a  director's  wife  would  not  be  *  out  of 
place.'  " 

"Never  mind  that,"  said  the  minister,  "we  cannot  do 
without  your  husband;  he  has  been  nominated." 

"Really  and  truly?" 

"  Will  you  come  to  my  study  and  see  his  name  for  yourself? 
The  thing  is  done." 

It  seemed  to  her  that  there  was  something  suspicious  in  the 
minister's  eagerness  and  alacrity. 

"  Well,"  she  said,  as  they  stood  apart  in  a  corner,  "  let  me 
tell  you  that  I  can  repay  you " 

She  was  on  the  point  of  unfolding  her  husband's  scheme, 
when  des  Lupeaulx  came  forward  on  tiptoe  with  an  angry  little 
cough,  which,  being  interpreted,  meant  that  he  had  been 
listening  to  their  conversation,  and  did  not  wish  to  be  found 
out.  The  minister  looked  in  no  pleasant  humor  at  the  elderly 
coxcomb  thus  caught  in  a  trap.  Des  Lupeaulx  had  hurried 
on  the  work  of  the  staff  beyond  all  reason,  in  his  impatience 
for  his  conquest ;  he  had  put  it  in  the  minister's  hands,  and 
next  day  he  intended  to  bring  the  nomination  to  her  who 
passed  for  his  mistress. 

Just  at  that  moment  the  minister's  footman  came,  and  with 
a  mysterious  air  informed  des  Lupeaulx  that  his  own  man  had 
brought  a  letter  to  be  delivered  to  him  immediately,  adding 
that  it  was  of  great  importance. 

The  secretary-general  went  to  a  lamp  and  read  a  missive  thus 
conceived  : 


396  LES  EMPLOYES. 

"  Contrary  to  my  habit,  I  am  waiting  in  an  antechamber; 
there  is  not  a  moment  to  lose  if  you  mean  to  arrange  with  your 
servant  ^        *""^''*^»>. 

The  secretary-general  shuddered  at  the  sight  of  that  signa- 
ture.   It  would  be  a  pity  not  to  give  a  facsimile  of  it,  for  it  is  rare 
on  the  market,  and  should  be  valuable  to  those  persons  who 
discover  character  in  handwriting.     If  ever  hieroglyph  repre- 
sented an  animal,  surely  this  name,  with  its  initial  and  final 
letter,  suggests  the  voracious  insatiable  jaws  of  a  shark,  jaws 
that  are  always  agape,  always  catching  hold  of  the  strong  and 
the  weak  alike,  and  gobbling  them  down.      It  has  been  found 
impossible  to  reproduce  the  whole  note  in  facsimile,  for  the 
handwriting,  though  clear,  is  too  small  and  close  and  fine  ;  the 
whole  sentence,  indeed,  only  fills  one  line.     The  spirit  of  bill- 
discounting  alone  could  inspire  so  insolently  imperative,  so  cru- 
elly irreproachable  a  sentence ;  an  explicit  yet  non-committal 
statement,  which  told  all  yet  revealed  nothing.     If  you  had 
never  heard  of  Gobseck  before,  you  might  have  guessed  what 
manner  of  man  it  was  that  wrote  that  line ;  and  seen  the  im- 
placable money-lender  of  the  Rue  des  Gres,  who  could  sum- 
mons you  into  his  presence  without  sending  an  order.     Ac- 
cordingly, des  Lupeaulx  straightway  disappeared,  like  a  dog 
when  the  sportsman  calls  him  off  the  scent ;  and  went  to  his 
own  abode,  pondering  by  the  way.    His  whole  position  seemed 
to  be  compromised.     Picture  to  yourself  the  sensations  of  a 
general-in-chief  when  his  aide-de-camp  announces  that  "the 
enemy  with  thirty  thousand  men,  all  fresh  troops,  is  taking  us 
in  flank."     A  word  will  explain  the  arrival  of  Messieurs  Gi- 
gonnet  and  Gobseck  upon  the  field ;  for  both  those  worthies 
were  waiting  upon  des  Lupeaulx. 

At  eight  o'clock  that  evening,  Martin  Falleix  had  arrived 
on  the  wings  of  the  wind  (thanks  to  three  francs  per  stage  and 


LES  EMPLOYES.  397 

a  postillion  sent  on  ahead).  He  had  brought  the  contracts, 
which  all  bore  yesterday's  date.  Mitral  took  the  documents 
at  once  to  the  Cafe  Themis  ;  they  were  duly  handed  over,  and 
the  two  money-lenders  hurried  over  to  des  Lupeaulx.  They 
went  on  foot,  however.     The  clock  struck  eleven. 

Des  Lupeaulx  shuddered  as  he  watched  the  two  sinister- 
looking  faces  light  up  with  a  gleeful  expression,  and  saw  a 
look  that  shot  out  straight  as  a  bullet  and  blazed  like  the  flash 
of  powder. 

"  Well,  my  masters,  what  is  the  matter?  " 

The  two  money-lenders  sat  motionless  and  impassive.  Gi- 
gonnet  glanced  from  his  bundle  of  papers  to  the  manservant. 

"Let  us  go  into  my  study,"  said  des  Lupeaulx,  dismissing 
the  man  with  a  sign. 

"You  understand  French  admirably,"  remarked  Gigonnet. 

"  Have  you  come  to  torment  a  man  that  put  you  in  the  way 
of  making  two  hundred  thousand  francs  apiece?"  asked  des 
Lupeaulx,  and  in  spite  of  himself  his  gesture  was  disdainful. 

"And  will  put  us  in  the  way  of  making  more,  I  hope,"  said 
Gigonnet. 

"  Is  it  a  bit  of  business?   If  you  want  me,  I  have  a  memory." 

"And  we  have  memoranda  of  yours,"  riposted  Gigonnet. 

"My  debts  will  be  paid,"  des  Lupeaulx  returned  loftily. 
He  did  not  wish  to  be  led  into  a  discussion  on  the  subject. 

"Truly?"  asked  Gobseck. 

"  Let  us  go  to  the  point,  my  son,"  said  Gigonnet.  "  Don't 
you  draw  yourself  up  in  your  stock  like  that ;  it  won't  do  with 
us.     Take  these  contracts  and  read  them  through." 

Des  Lupeaulx  read  with  surprise  and  amazement ;  angels 
might  have  flung  those  contracts  down  from  the  clouds  for 
him  ;  and  meanwhile  the  pair  took  stock  of  his  room. 

"You  have  a  couple  of  intelligent  men  of  business  in  us, 
haven't  you?"  asked  Gigonnet. 

"  But  to  what  do  I  owe  such  ingenious  cooperation?"  des 
Lupeaulx  inquired  uneasily. 


398  LES  EMFLOYj^S. 

"  We  knew  a  week  ago,  what  you  will  not  know  till  to- 
morrow unless  we  tell  you :  the  president  of  the  Commercial 
Court  finds  that  he  is  obliged  to  resign  his  seat  in  the  Chamber. ' ' 

Des  Lupeaulx's  eyes  dilated  till  they  grew  as  large  as 
meadow  daisies. 

"Your  minister  was  playing  this  trick  upon  you,"  added  ^ 

Gobseck,  the  curt-spoken. 

"You  are  my  masters,"  said  des  Lupeaulx,  saluting  the 
pair  with  a  profound  respect  in  which  there  was  a  certain 
tinge  of  irony. 

"Precisely,"  said  Gobseck. 

"  But  are  you  about  to  strangle  me  ?  " 

"  That  is  possible." 

"Very  well,  then;  set  about  it,  you  executioners!"  re- 
turned the  secretary-general  with  a  smile. 

"  Your  debts,"  began  Gigonnet,  "  are  inscribed  along  with 
the  loan  of  the  purchase-money,  you  see." 

"Here  are  the  deeds,"  added  Gobseck,  as  he  drew  a 
bundle  of  documents  from  the  pocket  of  his  faded  greatcoat. 

"And  you  have  three  years  to  pay  the  lot,"  said  Gigonnet. 

"But  what  do  you  want  ?"  asked  des  Lupeaulx,  much 
alarmed  by  so  much  readiness  to  oblige,  and  such  a  fancy 
settlement. 

"La  Billardidre's  place  for  Baudoyer,"  Gigonnet  answered 
quickly. 

"  It  is  a  very  small  thing,"  returned  des  Lupeaulx,  "  though 
I  should  have  to  do  the  impossible.  I  myself  have  tied  my 
hands." 

"  You  are  going  to  gnaw  the  cords  with  your  teeth,"  said 
Gigonnet. 

"  They  are  sharp  enough  !  "  added  Gobseck. 

"Is  that  all?" 

"We  shall  keep  the  contracts  until  these  claims  are  ad- 
mitted," said  Gigonnet,  laying  a  statement  under  the  secre- 
tary-general's eyes  as  he  spoke  ;   "if  these  are  not  recognized 


LES  EMPLOYES.  399 

within  six  days  by  the  committee,  my  name  will  be  written 
instead  of  yours  on  the  deeds," 

"You  are  clever,"  exclaimed  des  Lupeaulx. 

"Precisely,"  said  Gobseck. 

"And  that  is  all?" 

"True,"  replied  Gobseck. 

"  Is  it  a  bargain  ?  "  demanded  Gigonnet. 

Des  Lupeaulx  nodded. 

"Very  well,  then,  sign  this  power  of  attorney,"  said 
Gigonnet  "  Baudoyer's  nomination  in  two  days;  the  admis- 
sion of  the  claims  in  six;  and " 

"And  what?" 

"  We  guarantee  you " 

"  What  ?  "  cried  des  Lupeaulx,  more  and  more  astonished. 

"  K7«r  nomination,"  replied  Gigonnet,  swelling  with  pride. 
"  We  are  secure  of  a  majority  ;  fifty-two  tenant-farmers  and 
tradesmen  are  ready  to  vote  at  the  election  as  the  lender  of 
money  may  direct." 

Des  Lupeaulx  grasped  Gobseck's  hand. 

"  We  are  the  only  people  among  whom  misapprehensions 
are  impossible.  This  is  what  you  may  call  business.  So  I 
will  throw  in  a  make-weight." 

"  Precisely  "  (from  Gobseck). 

"  What  is  it  to  be  ?  "  asked  Gigonnet. 

"  The  cross  for  your  oaf  of  a  nephew." 

"  Good  !  "  said  Gigonnet,      "  You  know  him," 

With  that  the  pair  took  their  leave,  Des  Lupeaulx  went 
with  them  to  the  stairs, 

"  Those  are  secret  envoys  from  some  foreign  power  !  "  said 
the  footmen  among  themselves. 

Out  in  the  street  the  money-lenders  looked  in  each  other's 
faces  by  the  light  of  a  lamp  and  laughed. 

"He  will  have  to  pay  us  nine  thousand  francs  per  annum 
in  the  shape  of  interest,  and  the  land  scarcely  brings  in  five 
thousand  net,"  cried  Gigonnet. 


400  LES  EMPLOYES. 

"  He  will  be  in  our  hands  for  a  long  while  to  come,"  said 
Gobseck. 

"He  will  begin  to  build;  he  will  do  foolish  things,"  re- 
turned Gigonnet.     "Falleix  will  buy  the  land." 

"  He  wants  to  be  a  deputy  ;  the  wolf*  laughs  at  the  rest." 

"Eh!  eh!" 

"Eh!  eh!" 

The  dry  chirping  exclamations  did  duty  for  laughter.  The 
usurers  returned  on  foot  to  the  Cafe  Themis. 

Des  Lupeaulx  went  back  to  the  drawing-room  and  found 
Mme.  Rabourdin  in  all  her  glory.  She  was  charming.  The 
minister's  countenance,  usually  so  melancholy,  had  relaxed 
and  grown  gracious. 

"She  is  working  miracles,"  des  Lupeaulx  said  to  himself. 
"  What  an  invaluable  woman  !  One  must  probe  to  the  bottom 
of  her  heart." 

"  Your  little  lady  will  decidedly  do  very  well  indeed,"  said 
the  marquise;   "she  wants  nothing  but  your  name." 

"Yes,  she  is  an  auctioneer's  daughter,  it  is  the  one  thing 
against  her;  her  want  of  birth  will  be  the  ruin  of  her."  Des 
Lupeaulx's  air  of  cool  indifference  contrasted  strangely  with 
his  warmth  of  a  few  minutes  ago. 

The  Marquise  d'Espard  looked  steadily  back  at  him. 

"The  glance  you  gave  them  just  now  was  not  lost  upon 
me,"  she  said,  indicating  the  minister  and  Mme.  Rabourdin  ; 
"it  pierced  through  the  mist  of  your  eyeglasses.  You  are 
amusing,  you  two,  to  quarrel  over  that  bone." 

As  the  marquise  made  her  way  past  the  door,  the  minister 
hurried  across  the  room  to  her. 

"Well,"  said  des  Lupeaulx,  addressing  Mme.  Rabourdin, 
"  what  do  you  think  of  our  minister  ?  " 

"  He  is  charming.  Really,"  she  added,  raising  her  voice 
for  the  benefit  of  his  excellency's  wife,  "  really,  the  poor 
ministers  must  be  known  to  be  appreciated.     The  minor  news- 

*  Le  loup. 


LES  EMPLOYES.  401 

papers  and  the  slanders  of  the  Opposition  give  one  such  dis- 
torted ideas  of  politicians,  and  in  the  end  one  is  influenced. 
But  the  prejudice  turns  in  their  favor  when  you  meet  them." 

'•  He  is  very  pleasant," 

"Well,  I  can  assure  you  that  one  could  be  very  fond  of 
him,"  she  returned  good-humoredly. 

"Dear  child,"  said  des  Lupeaulx,  assuming  a  good-natured 
and  ingratiating  air,  "you  have  achieved  the  impossible." 

"What?"  asked  she. 

"You  have  raised  the  dead  to  life,  I  did  not  think  that  he 
had  a  heart ;  ask  his  wife  !  He  has  just  enough  to  defray  a 
passing  fancy,  but  take  advantage  of  it.  Come  this  way  :  do 
not  be  surprised." 

He  led  the  way  to  the  boudoir  and  sat  down  beside  her  on 
a  sofa. 

"You  are  crafty,"  he  said,  "and  I  like  you  the  better  for 
it.  Between  ourselves,  you  are  no  ordinary  woman.  Des 
Lupeaulx  introduced  you  here,  and  there  is  an  end  of  him  ; 
is  it  not  so  ?  And  beside,  when  we  decide  to  love  for  interest, 
a  minister  of  seventy  is  to  be  preferred  to  a  secretary-general 
of  forty ;  it  pays  better,  and  is  less  irksome.  I  wear  eye- 
glasses, and  my  hair  is  powdered,  and  I  am  the  worse  for  a 
life  of  pleasure  ;  a  romantic  love  affair  it  would  be  !  Oh  ! 
I  have  told  myself  all  this.  If  one  absolutely  must,  one  makes 
some  concession  to  the  useful,  but  I  shall  never  be  the  agree- 
able, shall  I  ?  A  man  in  my  position  would  be  mad  if  he  did 
not  look  at  it  from  all  sides.  You  can  confess  the  truth,  and 
show  me  the  bottom  of  your  heart.  We  arc  two  partners, 
not  two  lovers;  are  we  not?  If  there  is  some  fancy  on  my 
side,  you  rise  superior  to  such  trifles  j  you  will  pass  it  over  in 
me ;  you  are  not  a  little  boarding-school  miss,  nor  a  trades- 
man's wife  from  the  Rue  Saint-Denis.  Pooh  !  we  are  above 
that,  you  and  I.  There  is  the  Marquise  d'Espard,  now  leav- 
ing; the  room,  do  you  suppose  that  she  thinks  otherwise?  We 
came  to  an  understanding  two  years  ago  "  (the  coxcomb  ! ), 
2G 


402  LES  EMPLOYES. 

"and  now  she  has  only  to  write  me  a  line,  and  not  a  very 
long  one — '  My  dear  des  Lupeaulx,  you  will  oblige  me  by 
doing  so-and-so  ' — and  the  thing  is  done  forthwith.  We  are 
thinking  of  bringing  a  petition  for  a  commission  in  lunacy  on 
her  husband.  You  women  can  have  anything  that  you  will 
at  the  cost  of  pleasure.  Well,  then,  dear  child,  take  his  ex- 
cellency with  your  wiles;  I  will  help  you,  it  is  to  my  interest 
so  to  do.  Yes,  I  should  like  to  have  him  under  a  woman's 
influence;  he  would  never  slip  through  my  fingers  then,  as  he 
sometimes  does,  and  naturally,  for  I  only  keep  a  hold  on  his 
commonsense,  but  with  a  pretty  woman  to  help  me,  I  should 
have  him  on  his  weak  side,  and  that  is  the  surest.  So  let  us 
be  good  friends  as  before,  and  divide  the  credit  that  you  will 
gain."  Mme.  Rabourdin  heard  this  singular  profession  of 
rascality  with  the  utmost  astonishment.  The  barefaced  sim- 
plicity of  the  political  business  transaction  put  any  idea  of 
expressing  surprise  quite  out  of  the  question.  She  fell  into 
the  snare. 

"  Do  you  think  that  I  have  made  an  impression  upon  him  ?  " 
she  asked. 

"  I  know  you  have,  I  am  sure  of  it." 

"Is  it  true  that  Rabourdin's  appointment  is  signed?" 
asked  Celestine. 

"  I  put  the  report  before  him  this  morning.  But  it  is 
nothing  to  be  the  head  of  the  division  ;  he  must  be  master  of 
requests." 

"Yes." 

"Very  well,  go  in  again  and  flirt  with  his  excellency." 

"  Indeed,"  she  said,  "  I  never  really  knew  you  till  to-night. 
There  is  nothing  commonplace  about  you." 

"And  so,  we  are  two  old  friends,  and  there  is  an  end  of 
tender  airs  and  tiresome  love-making  ;  we  understand  things 
as  they  used  to  do  under  the  Regency ;  they  had  plenty  of 
sense  in  those  davs." 

"You  are  in  truth  a  great  man,  I  admire  you,"  she  said, 


I 


LES  EMPLOYES.  403 

smiling  at  him  as  she  held  out  her  hand.     "  You  shall  know 
that  a  woman  does  more  for  her  friend  than  for  her " 

She  left  the  sentence  unfinished  and  went. 

"Dear  little  thing!  Des  Lupeaulx  need  feel  no  remorse 
over  turning  against  you,"  said  her  companion,  as  he  watched 
her  cross  the  room  to  the  minister.  "To-morrow  evening 
when  you  hand  me  a  cup  of  tea,  you  will  offer  me  something 
else  which  I  shall  not  care  to  take.  There  is  no  more  to  be 
said.  Ah  !  when  you  come  to  your  fortieth  year,  women  take 
you  in  ;  it  is  too  late  to  be  loved." 

Des  Lupeaulx  also  went  back  to  the  drawing-room,  scanned 
himself  in  a  mirror,  and  knew  that  he  was  a  very  fine  fellow 
for  political  purposes,  but  unmistakably  superannuated  for  the 
court  of  Cytherea.  Mme.  Rabourdin  meanwhile  was  work- 
ing up  her  climax;  she  meditated  taking  her  departure,  and 
did  her  best  to  leave  a  last  pleasing  impression  upon  every 
one  present.  She  succeeded.  An  unwonted  exclamation  of 
"Charming  woman  !  "  broke  from  every  one  as  soon  as  she 
had  gone,  and  the  fascinated  minister  went  with  her  to  the 
farthest  door. 

"  I  am  quite  sure  that  you  will  think  of  me  to-morrow,"  he 
said,  alluding  to  the  nomination.  "I  am  quite  satisfied  with 
our  acquisition,  not  many  high  officials  have  such  charming 
wives,"  he  added,  as  he  came  back  to  the  room. 

"  Do  you  not  think  that  she  is  inclined  to  encroach  a 
little?"  des  Lupeaulx  began.      He  seemed  rather  put  out. 

The  women  exchanged  meaning  glances  ;  the  rivalry  between 
the  secretary-general  and  the  minister  amused  them.  And 
forthwith  they  began  one  of  those  charming  mystifications  in 
which  the  Parisienne  excels.  They  all  began  to  talk  about 
Mme.  Rabourdin  ;  they  stirred  up  the  minister  and  des  Lu- 
jjcaulx.  One  lady  thought  Mme.  Rabourdin  too  studied,  slie 
aimed  too  much  at  wit  ;  another  began  to  compare  the  graces 
of  the  bourgeoisie  with  the  manners  of  persons  of  fashion,  criti- 
cising Celestine  by  implication  ;  and  des  Lupeaulx  defended 


404  LES  EMPLOYES. 

the  mistress  attributed  to  him,  but  his  defense  was  of  a  kind 
reserved  exclusively  in  polite  society  for  absent  enemies. 

"  Pray  be  fair  to  her,  mesdames.  Is  it  not  an  extraordinary 
thing  that  an  auctioneer's  daughter  should  be  so  charming? 
You  see  where  she  comes  from,  and  where  she  is;  and  she 
will  go  to  the  Tuileries,  she  is  aiming  at  that,  she  told  me 
so." 

"And  if  she  is  an  auctioneer's  daughter,"  said  Mme.  d'Es- 
pard,  smiling  over  her  words,  ''how  should  that  injure  her 
husband's  prospects?  " 

"As  times  are,  you  mean?"  asked  the  minister's  wife, 
pursing  up  her  lips. 

"  Madame,"  the  minister  said  sternly,  turning  on  the  mar- 
quise, "such  language  brings  on  revolutions,  and,  unfortu- 
nately, the  Court  spares  no  one.  You  would  not  believe  how 
much  the  heedlessness  of  the  upper  classes  displeases  certain 
clear-sighted  persons  at  the  chateau.  If  I  were  a  great  lord, 
instead  of  a  little  provincial  of  good  family,  set  here,  as  it 
would  seem,  to  do  your  business  for  you,  the  Monarchy  should 
rest  on  a  firmer  basis  than  it  does  at  present.  What  will  be 
the  end  if  the  throne  cannot  shed  its  lustre  upon  its  represen- 
'  tatives?  We  are  far,  indeed,  from  the  times  when  the  King's 
will  ennobled  a  Louvois,  a  Colbert,  a  Richelieu,  a  Jeannin,  a 
Villeroy,  or  a  Sully.  Yes,  Sully  in  the  beginning  was  nothing 
more  than  I.  I  speak  in  this  way  because  we  are  among  our- 
selves, and  I  should  be  small,  indeed,  if  I  took  offense  at  such 
trifles.  It  rests  with  us,  and  not  with  others,  to  make  a  great 
name  for  ourselves." 

"You  have  the  appointment,  dear,"  said  Celestine,  squeezing 
her  husband's  hand.  "  If  it  had  not  been  for  des  Lupeaulx,  I 
would  have  explained  your  project  to  the  minister;  but  that 
must  be  left  till  next  Tuesday  now,  and  you  will  be  master  of 
requests  all  the  sooner." 

There  is  one  day  in  every  woman's  life  in  which  she  shines 


LES  EMPLOYES.  406 

in  all  her  glory — a  day  that  she  remembers,  and  loves  to  re- 
member, as  long  as  she  lives.  As  Mme.  Rabourdin  undid  her 
artfully  adjusted  ornaments  one  by  one,  she  went  over  that 
evening  again,  and  reckoned  it  among  the  glorious  days  of  her 
life.  All  her  beauty  had  been  jealously  noted  ;  the  minister's 
wife  had  paid  her  compliments  (she  was  not  ill-pleased  to 
praise  the  new-comer  at  the  expense  of  her  friends)  ;  and  more 
than  all,  satisfied  vanity  had  redounded  to  her  husband's  ad- 
vantage.    Xavier's  appointment  had  been  made  ! 

"  Did  I  not  look  well  to-night  ?  "  she  asked  her  husband,  as 
though  there  were  any  need  to  kindle  his  admiration. 

At  that  very  moment  Mitral  at  the  Cafe  Themis  saw  the 
two  usurers  come  in.     Their  impassive  faces  gave  no  sign. 

"  How  are  we  getting  on?  "  he  asked  when  they  sat  down 
to  the  table. 

*'  Oh,  well,  as  usual,"  said  Gigonnet,  rubbing  his  hands; 
"victory  is  on  the  side  of  the  francs." 

"That  is  so,"  remarked  Gobseck. 

Mitral  lost  no  time.  He  took  a  coach  and  drove  away  with 
the  news.  The  game  of  boston  had  been  long  drawn  out  that 
night  at  the  Saillards,  but  every  one  had  left  except  the  Abbe 
Gaudron.     Falleix  had  gone  to  bed  ;  he  was  tired  out. 

"You  will  get  the  appointment,  nephew,  and  there  is  a 
surprise  in  store  for  you." 

"What?"  asked  Saillard. 

"  The  cross  !  "  cried  Mitral. 

"  God  is  with  those  that  care  for  His  altars !  "  commented 
Gaudron. 

And  thus  was  the  Te  Deum  chanted  with  equal  joy  in  either 
camp. 

Next  day  was  Friday.  M.  Rabourdin  was  to  go  to  the 
minister,  for  he  had  done  the  work  of  the  head  of  the  division 
ever  since  the  late  La  Billardiere  fell  ill.  On  these  occasions 
the  clerks  were  remarkably,  punctual,   the    office-messengers 


406  LES  EMPLOYES. 

zealous  and  attentive,  for  on  signature  days  the  offices  are 
all  in  a  flurry.     Why  and  wherefore?     Nobody  knows.     The 
three   messengers  accordingly  were  all  at  their  posts;  they 
flattered  themselves  that  fees  of  some  sort  would  come  their 
way,  for  rumors  of  M.   Rabourdin's  appointment  had  been 
^   spread  abroad  on   the  previous   day  by  des   Lupeaulx.     So 
'   Uncle  Antoine  and  Laurent  were  in  full  dress  at  a  quarter  to 
eight  when  the  secretary's  messenger  came  over  with  a  note, 
asking  Antoine   to  give  it,  in  private  to  M.   Dutocq.     The 
secretary-general  had  bidden  him  take  it  round  to  the  first 
clerk's  house  at  seven  o'clock.     ''And  I  don't  know  how  it 
happened,  old  man,  but  I  slept  on  and  on,  and  I  am  only 
just  awake  now.     He  would  give  me  an  infernal  blowing  up 
if  he  knew  that  the  note  had  not  gone  to  the  private  address ; 
'stead  of  which  I  shall  tell  him  as  how  I  took  it  to  Monsieur 
Dutocq's.     It  is  a  great  secret.  Daddy  Antoine.     Don't  say 
anything  to  the  clerks;    or,   my  word,   he  would  turn  me 
away.     I  should  lose  my  place  if  I  said  a  word  about  it,  he 
said." 

"Why,  what  is  there  inside  it?" 
"  Nothing;  for  I  looked  into  it,  like  this — there  !  " 
He  pressed  open  the  folded  sheet,  but  they  could  only  see 
white  paper  inside. 

"To-day  is  a  great  day  for  you,  Laurent,"  continued  the 
secretary's  messenger.  "You  are  going  to  have  a  new  direc- 
tor. They  will  retrench  beyond  a  doubt,  and  put  both  divi- 
sions under  one  director;  messengers  may  look  out !  " 

"Yes  !  nine  clerks  pensioned  off,"  said  Dutocq,  coming  up 
at  the  moment.      "  How  came  you  fellows  to  know  that  ?  " 

Antoine  handed  over  the  letter,  Dutocq  opened  it,  and 
rushed  headlong  down  the  staircase  to  the  secretary's  rooms. 
Since  the  day  of  M.  de  la  Billardiere's  death,  the  Rabour- 
dins  and  Baudoyers  had  settled  down  by  degrees  into  their 
wonted  ways  and  the  dolce-far-niente  habits  of  administrative 
routine.     There  had  been  plenty  of  gossip  at  first ;  but  an 


LES  EMPLOYES.  407 

access  of  industry  usually  sets  in  among  the  clerks  toward  the 
end  of  the  year,  and  the  doorkeepers  and  messengers  become 
more  unctuously  obsequious  about  the  same  time.  Everybody 
was  punctual  of  a  morning,  and  more  faces  might  be  seen  in 
the  office  after  four  o'clock;  for  the  bonus  at  the  New  Year  is 
apt  to  depend  upon  the  final  impression  left  on  the  mind  of 
your  chief.  Then  rumor  said  that  the  La  Billardifere  and 
Clergeot  divisions  were  to  be  brought  under  one  head.  The 
news  had  caused  a  flutter  in  the  department  on  the  previous 
day.  The  number  of  clerks  to  be  dismissed  was  known,  but 
no  one  knew  their  names  as  yet.  It  was  pretty  certain  that 
Poiret  would  not  be  replaced — they  would  effect  an  economy 
over  his  salary.  Young  La  Billardiere  had  gone.  Two  new 
supernumeraries  were  coming,  and  both  were  sons  of  deputies 
— an  appalling  circumstance.  These  tidings  had  arrived  just 
as  they  were  going  away.  It  struck  terror  into  every  con- 
science. And  so  for  the  first  half-hour,  as  the  clerks  were 
dropping  in,  there  was  talk  round  about  the  stoves. 

Des  Lupeaulx  was  shaving  when  Dutocq  appeared  ;  he  did 
not  put  down  his  razor  as  he  gave  the  clerk  a  glance  with  the 
air  of  a  general  that  issues  an  order. 

"Are  we  by  ourselves?  " 

"Yes,  sir." 

"  Very  well.  Go  for  Rabourdin  ;  walk  ahead,  and — hold 
on.     You  must  have  kept  a  copy  of  that  list." 

"Yes." 

^'Inde  ircz — you  understand.  We  must  have  a  general  hue 
and  cry.     Try  to  invent  something  to  raise  a  clamor." 

"  I  can  have  a  caricature  drawn,  but  I  have  not  five  hundred 
francs  to  pay  for  it." 

"Who  will  draw  it?" 

"Bixiou." 

"He  shall  have  a  thousand  francs  and  the  assistant's  place 
under  Colleville.  Colleville  will  come  to  an  understanding 
with  him." 


408  LES  EMPLOYES. 

"  But  he  will  not  believe  me." 

"You  want  to  mix  me  up  in  it,  perhaps?  It  is  that  or 
nothing — do  you  understand  ?  " 

"  If  Monsieur  Baudoyer  is  director,  he  might  possibly  lend 
the  money " 

"  Yes,  he  is  going  to  be  director.  Leave  me,  and  be  quick 
about  it.  Don't  seem  as  if  you  had  been  to  see  me.  Go 
down  by  the  back  stairs." 

Dutocq  went  back  to  the  office,  his  heart  throbbing  with 
joy.  He  was  wondering  how  to  raise  an  outcry  against  his 
chief  without  committing  himself,  when  Bixiou  looked  in  just 
to  wish  his  friends  the  Rabourdins  good-day.  Having  given 
up  his  wager  for  lost,  it  pleased  that  practical  joker  to  pose  as 
though  he  had  won. 

Bixiou  {tnimicking  PhelliorH s  voice).  "Gentlemen,  I  pre- 
sent my  compliments  to  you,  and  wish  you  collectively  a  good- 
day.  I  appoint  the  coming  Sunday  for  the  dinner  at  the 
Rocher  de  Cancale.  But  a  serious  dilemma  presents  itself: 
are  the  retiring  clerks  to  come  or  not  ?  " 

PoiRET.     "Yes  ;  even  those  that  are  pensioned  off." 

Bixiou.  "It  is  all  one  to  me  ;  I  shall  not  have  to  pay  for 
it"  ^general  amazement).  "Baudoyer  has  been  appointed. 
I  should  love  to  hear  him  calling  Laurent  at  this  moment." 
(^Mimics  Baudoyer.)  "  '  Laurent,  look  up  my  hair-shirt,  and 
my  scourge  along  with  it!'"  (^Feais  of  laughter  from  the 
clerks.)  "Fi's  d'' aboyeur  d^oie  /  There  is  sense  in  Colleville's 
anagrams,  for  Xavier  Rabourdin's  name  vc\zkt%  U abord  riva 
bureaux  e  u  fin  riche,  you  know.  If  my  name  happened  to 
be  'Charles  X.,  by  the  grace  of  God,  King  of  France  and 
Navarre,'  I  should  quake  for  fear  lest  my  anagram  might  come 
true  likewise." 

Thuillier.     "  Oh,  come  now,  you  want  to  make  fun  of  it !  " 

Bixiou  {laughing  in  his  face).  ' *  Ris-au-laid !  {riz-au-lait).^ 
That  is  neat,  Daddy  Thuillier,  for  you  are  not  good-looking. 
*  A  hideous  smile  like  rice  and  milk.     Untranslatable  pun. 


LES  EMPLOYES.  409 

Rabourdin  is  sending  in  his  resignation  in  a  fury  because  Bau- 
doyer  is  director." 

ViMEUX  {coining  171).  "  Wiiat  stuff!  I  have  just  been  re- 
paying Antoine  thirty  or  forty  francs,  and  he  tells  me  that 
Monsieur  and  Madame  Rabourdin  were  at  the  minister's  private 
party  last  night,  and  stopped  till  a  quarter  to  twelve.  His 
excellency  came  as  far  as  the  stairs  with  Madame  Rabourdin. 
She  was  divinely  dressed,  it  seems.  He  is  director  in  fact,  and 
no  mistake.  Rifle,  the  confidential  copying-clerk,  stopped 
late  to  finish  the  report  sooner.  There  is  no  mystery  about  it 
now.  Monsieur  Clergeot  is  retiring.  After  thirty  years  of 
service,  it  is  no  disgrace.  Monsieur  Cochin,  who  is  well-to- 
do " 

Bixiou.  "  He  makes  cochineal  (cochenille),  according  to 
ColleviUe." 

ViMEux.  "Why,  he  is  in  the  cochineal  trade;  he  is  a 
partner  in  Matifat's  business  in  the  Rue  des  Lombards.  Well, 
he  is  to  go,  and  Poiret  is  to  go.  Nobody  else  is  coming  on 
instead.  That  much  is  positive,  no  more  is  known.  Mon- 
sieur Rabourdin's  appointment  came  this  morning.  They  are 
afraid  of  intrigues." 

Bixiou.     "  What  sort  of  intrigues  ?  " 

Fleury.  "  Baudoyer,  begad!  The  clericals  are  backing 
him  up.  There  is  something  new  here  in  the  Liberal  paper ; 
it  is  only  a  couple  of  lines,  but  it  is  funny  " — {reads) — "  '  In 
the  green-room  of  the  Italiens  yesterday  there  was  some  talk 
of  M.  de  Chateaubriand's  return  to  office.  This  belief  was 
founded  upon  the  appointment  of  M.  Rabourdin  to  fill  the 
post  originally  intended  for  M.  Baudoyer — M.  Rabourdin 
being  a  protege  of  the  vicomte's  friends.  The  clerical  party 
would  never  have  withdrawn  except  to  make  a  compromise 
with  the  great  man  of  letters.'     Scum  of  the  earth  !  " 

DuTOCQ  (comes  in  after  listening  outside).  "  Scum  !  Who? 
Rabourdin.     Then  you  have  heard  the  news?" 

Fleury  {rolling  his  eyes  fiercely).     "Rabourdin! — scum  I 

O 


410  LES  EMPLOYES. 

Have  you  taken  leave  of  your  wits,  Dutocq?  And  do  you 
want  a  bullet  for  ballast  in  your  brains?  " 

Dutocq.  "  I  did  not  say  a  word  against  Monsieur  Ra- 
bourdin ;  only  just  now,  out  in  the  courtyard,  it  was  told  me 
as  a  secret  that  he  had  been  informing  against  a  good  many 
of  the  staff,  and  had  given  notes ;  in  short,  I  was  told  that  he 
had  sent  in  a  report  of  the  departments,  and  we  are  all  done 
for;  that  is  why  he  is  in  favor " 

Phellion  {shouts).  "  Monsieur  Rabourdin  is  inca- 
pable  " 

Bixiou.  "Here  is  a  nice  state  of  things!  I  say,  Du- 
tocq ?  "  ( They  exchange  a  word  or  two,  and  go  out  into  the 
corridor.) 

Bixiou.     *'  What  ever  can  have  happened  ?  " 

Dutocq.     "  Do  you  remember  the  caricature?  " 

Bixiou.     "Yes;  what  about  it  ?  " 

Dutocq.  "  Draw  it,  and  you  will  be  chief  clerk's  assistant, 
and  you  will  get  something  handsome  beside.  You.  see,  my 
dear  fellow,  dissension  has  been  sown  in  the  upper  regions. 
The  minister  is  pledged  to  Rabourdin  ;  but  if  he  does  not  ap- 
point Baudoyer,  he  will  get  into  trouble  with  the  clergy. 
Don't  you  know?  The  King,  the  Dauphin,  the  Dauphiness, 
the  grand  almoner,  the  whole  Court,  in  fact,  are  for  Baudoyer ; 
the  minister  wants  Rabourdin." 

Bixiou.     "Good! " 

Dutocq.  "The  minister  has  begun  to  see  that  he  must 
give  way,  but  he  must  get  quit  of  the  difficulty  before  he  can 
go  over.  He  wants  a  reason  for  ridding  himself  of  Rabourdin. 
So  somebody  has  unearthed  an  old  report  that  he  made  with  a 
view  of  reforming  the  service,  and  some  of  it  is  getting  about. 
That  is  how  I  try  to  explain  the  thing  to  myself,  at  least.  Do 
the  drawing  ;  you  come  on  in  a  match  played  among  great 
folk ;  you  will  do  a  service  to  the  minister,  the  Court,  and 
all  others  concerned,  and  get  your  step.  Do  you  properly 
understand?" 


LES  EMPLOYES.  •  411 

BixTOU.  "  I  do  not  understand  how  you  can  know  all  this, 
or  whether  you  are  just  making  it  up." 

DuTOCQ.  "  Would  you  like  me  to  show  you  your  para- 
graph?" 

Bixiou.     "Yes." 

DuTOCQ.  "  Very  well,  come  round  to  my  place,  for  I  want 
to  put  the  report  in  sure  hands." 

Bixiou.  "  Go  by  yourself  "  {goes  back  to  the  Rabourdins). 
"  People  are  talking  of  nothing  but  this  news  that  Dutocq  has 
brought ;  upon  my  honor.  Monsieur  Rabourdin's  notes  on 
the  men  that  he  m.eant  to  reform  out  of  the  service  can't  have 
been  very  complimentary.  That  is  the  secret  of  his  promo- 
tion. Nothing  astonishes  us  in  these  days"  {strikes  an  atti- 
tude, after  "Talma"). 

"  *  Illustrious  heads  have  fallen  before  your  eyes, 
And  yet,  oh,  senseless  men  !  ye  show  surprise ' — 

— if  somebody  points  out  a  reason  of  this  sort  when  a  man 
gets  into  favor !  Our  Baudoyer  is  too  stupid  to  make  his  way 
by  such  methods.  Accept  my  congratulations,  gentlemen, 
you  are  under  an  illustrious  chief"  {goes'). 

PoiRET.  "  I  shall  retire  from  the  service  without  under- 
standing a  single  thing  that  that  gentleman  has  said  since  he 
came  here.     What  does  he  mean  with  his  falling  heads?" 

Fleury.  "The  four  sergeants  of  La  Rochelle,  egad! 
Berton,  Ney,  Caron,  the  brothers  Faucher,  and  all  the  mas- 
sacres." 

Phellion.     "He  says  risky  things  in  a  flippant  manner." 

Fleury.  "Why  don't  you  say  at  once  that  he  lies;  that 
he  humbugs  you ;  that  the  truth  turns  to  verdegris  in  his 
throat?" 

Phellion.  "Your  remarks  transgress  the  limits  of  polite- 
ness and  the  consideration  due  to  a  colleague." 

ViMEUx.     "  It  seems  to  me  that  if  what  he  says  is  false, 


412  LES  EMPLOYES. 

such  remarks  are  called  slander  and  defamation  of  character, 
and  the  man  who  utters  them  deserves,  and  is  like  to  get,  a 
horsewhipping." 

Fleury  {waxing  wrafh/ul).  "And  if  a  government  office 
were  a  public  place,  it  would  be  an  indictable  offense,  and  go 
straight  to  a  court  of  law." 

Phellion  {anxious  to  avoid  a  quarrel,  endeavors  to  change 
the  subject).  "  Calm  yourselves,  gentlemen,  I  am  at  work 
upon  a  little  treatise  on  morality,  and  have  just  come  to  the 
soul " 

Fleurv  {interrupting^.  "  What  do  you  say  to  it.  Monsieur 
Phellion?" 

Phellion  {reading  aloud).  "  'Question.  What  is  the  soul 
of  man  ? 

"  'Answer.  A  spiritual  substance  which  thinks  and 
reasons.'  " 

Thuillier,  '^A  spiritual  substance!  You  might  as  well 
say  an  ethereal  block  of  stone." 

PoiRET.      "Just  let  him  go  on " 

Phellion  {continues').     "  'Q.     Whence  comes  the  soul  ? 

"  'A.  It  comes  from  God,  by  whom  it  was  created ;  God 
made  it  simple  and  indivisible,  consequently  its  destructibility 
is  inconceivable,  and  He  has  said '  " 


)> 


PoiRET  {bewildered).     "God? 

Phellion.     "Yes,  mosieur,  tradition  says  so." 

Fleurv  {to  Poiret).     "  Don't  you  interrupt !  " 

Phellion  {resumes).  "  ' — has  said  that  He  created  it  im- 
mortal, which  means  that  it  will  never  die. 

"  'Q.     To  what  end  does  the  soul  exist  ? 

"  'A.  To  comprehend,  to  will,  and  to  remember;  it  com- 
prises the  understanding,  the  will,  and  the  memory. 

"  'Q.     To  what  end  have  we  understanding? 

"  'A.  That  we  may  know.  The  understanding  is  the  eye 
of  the  soul.'  " 

Fleury.     "  And  the  soul  is  the  eye  of  what  ? 


>i 


"A. 
"A 


LES  EMPLOYES.  413 

Fhellioh  (conti'nui'ng).  "'Q.  What  is  the  understanding 
bound  to  know? 

"  'A.     The  truth. 

Why  has  man  a  will  ? 

In  order  that  he  may  love  good  and  eschew  evil. 

What  is  good  ? 

The  source  of  man's  happiness.'  " 

ViMEUX.     "And  are  you  writing  this  for  young  ladies?" 

Phellion.  ''Yt%''  {continues).  "  '  Q.  How  many  kinds 
of  good  are  there? '  " 

Fleury.     "  This  is  prodigiously  improper  !  " 

Phellion  (indignantly).  "Oh!  mosieur"  {cooling  down). 
"  Here  is  the  answer,  anyhow.  I  have  come  to  it  " — (reads) 
— "  'A.  There  are  two  kinds  of  good — temporal  good  and 
eternal  good.'  " 

Poiret  (jjvith  a  contemptuous  countenance).  "  And  will 
there  be  a  great  sale  for  that?'' 

Phellion.  "  I  venture  to  hope  so.  It  takes  a  lot  of 
mental  exercise  to  keep  up  a  system  of  questions  and  answers ; 
that  was  why  I  asked  you  to  allow  me  to  think,  for  the 
answers " 

Thuillier.  "  The  answers  might  be  sold  separately 
though." 

Poiret.      "Is  it  a  pun?" 

Thuillier.  "Yes.  They  will  sell  the  gammon  without 
spinach." 

Phellion,  "  It  was  very  wrong,  indeed,  of  me  to  interrupt 
you."  (Dives  in  among  his  pasteboard  cases.  To  himself.) 
"But  they  have  forgotten  Monsieur  Rabourdin." 

Meanwhile  a  scene  that  took  place  between  the  minister 
and  des  Lupcaulx  decided  Rabourdin's  fate.  The  secretary- 
general  went  to  find  his  chief  in  his  study  before  break- 
fast. 

"Your  excellency  is  not  playing  aboveboard  with  me,"  he 


414  LES  EMPLOYES. 

began,  when  he  had  made  sure  that  La  Briere  could  hear 
nothing. 

"  Here,  he  is  going  to  quarrel  with  me,"  thought  the  min- 
ister, "  because  his  mistress  flirted  with  me  yesterday."  Aloud 
he  said,  "  I  did  not  think  that  you  were  such  a  boy,  my  dear 
friend." 

"Friend,"  repeated  the  secretary-general;  "I  shall  soon 
know  about  that." 

The  minister  looked  haughtily  at  des  Lupeaulx. 

"We  are  by  ourselves,  so  we  can   have  an   explanation. 
The  deputy  for  the  district  in  which  my  estate  of  des  Lupeaulx- 
is  situated " 

"Then  it  really  is  an  estate?"  laughed  the  minister,  to 
hide  his  surprise. 

"  Enlarged  by  purchases  to  the  extent  of  two  hundred  thou- 
sand francs,"  des  Lupeaulx  added  carelessly.  "You  knew 
ten  days  ago  that  the  deputy  was  going  to  resign  his  seat,  and 
you  said  nothing  to  me — you  were  not  bound  to  do  so ;  still, 
you  knew  very  well  that  it  is  my  wish  to  sit  on  the  Centre 
benches.  Did  you  not  think  that  I  might  throw  in  my  lot 
with  the  doctrinaires,  the  party  that  will  eat  you  up,  Monarchy 
and  all,  if  they  are  allowed  to  recruit  all  the  able  men  that 
you  slight  ?  Do  you  not  know  that  there  are  not  more  than 
fifty  or  sixty  dangerous  heads  at  a  time  in  a  nation,  and  that 
in  those  fifty  or  sixty  the  intellect  is  on  a  level  with  the  ambi- 
tion ?  The  whole  art  of  government  consists  in  finding  out 
those  heads,  so  that  you  may  buy  them  or  cut  them  off.  I 
do  not  know  whether  I  have  talent,  but  I  have  ambition  ;  and 
you  make  a  blunder  when  you  do  not  come  to  an  understand- 
ing with  a  man  who  means  nothing  but  good  to  you.  The 
coronation  dazzled  you  for  a  minute,  but  what  follows?  The 
war  of  words  and  arguments  will  begin  again  and  grow  more 
acrimonious.  Well,  so  far  as  you  are  concerned,  you  don't 
find  me  in  the  Left  Centre,  believe  me  !  Your  prefect  has 
had  confidential  instructions,  no  doubt ;  but,  in  spite  of  his 


LES  EMPLOYES.  415 

manoeuvres,  I  am  sure  of  a  majority.  It  is  time  that  we  came 
to  a  thorough  understanding.  Sometimes  people  are  better 
friends  after  a  little  coup  de  Jarnac.'^  I  shall  be  a  count,  and 
the  grand  cross  of  the  Legion  will  not  be  refused  after  my 
services;  but  I  insist  not  so  much  on  these  two  points  as  upon 
a  third  which  your  influence  can  decide.  You  have  not  yet 
appointed  Rabourdin  ;  I  have  had  news  this  morning;  you 
will  give  general  satisfaction  by  nominating  Baudoyer " 

" Baudoyer/'^  exclaimed  the  minister;  "  you  know  him  !  " 

"Yes,"  said  des  Lupeaulx  ;  "but  when  he  gives  proof  of 
his  incompetence,  you  can  get  rid  of  him  by  asking  his  patrons 
to  take  him  into  their  employ.  Then  you  will  have  an  im- 
portant post  in  your  gift,  and  that  may  facilitate  a  compromise 
with  some  ambitious  man." 

"I  have  given  my  word  to  Rabourdin  !  " 

"Yes,  but  I  do  not  ask  you  to  change  your  mind  at  once. 
I  know  that  it  is  dangerous  to  say  '  Yes  '  and  'No  *  on  the 
same  day.  Wait,  and  you  can  sign  the  day  after  to-morrow. 
Well,  in  two  days'  time  you  will  see  that  it  is  impossible  to 
keep  Rabourdin  ;  and  beside,  he  will  have  sent  in  his  resigna- 
tion, plump  and  plain." 

"  Resignation  ?  " 

"Yes." 

"Why?" 

"  He  has  been  at  work  for  some  power  unknown,  playing 
the  spy  on  a  large  scale  all  through  the  departments.  This 
was  found  out  by  accident ;  it  has  got  about,  and  the  clerks 
are  furious.  For  mercy's  sake,  do  not  work  with  him  to-day ; 
let  me  find  an  excuse.  Go  to  the  King,  I  am  sure  you  will 
find  that  certain  persons  will  be  pleased  by  your  concession  as 
to  Baudoyer,  and  you  will  get  something  in  exchange.  Then 
you  will  strengthen  your  position  later  on  by  getting  rid  of 
the  fool,  seeing  that  he  has  been  forced  upon  you,  as  one  may 
say." 

*  Hamstringing  by  a  stroke  of  the  sword;  used  by  Jarnac,  1547. 


416  LES  EMPLOYES. 

"What  made  you  change  your  mind  about  Rabourdin  in 
this  way?  " 

**  Would  you  assist  Monsieur  de  Chateaubriand  to  write  an 
article  against  the  Government  ?  Well,  this  is  how  Rabourdin 
treats  me  in  his  report,"  said  des  Lupeaulx,  handing  his  note 
to  the  minister.  "  He  is  reorganizing  the  whole  system,  no 
doubt,  for  the  benefit  of  a  confederation  which  we  do  not  know. 
I  shall  keep  on  friendly  terms  with  him,  so  as  to  watch  over 
him.  I  think  I  will  do  some  great  service  to  the  Government, 
so  as  to  reach  the  peerage ;  a  peerage  is  the  one  thing  that  I 
care  about.  I  do  not  want  office,  nor  anything  else  that  can 
cross  your  path.  I  am  aiming  at  the  peerage ;  then  I  shall  be 
in  a  position  to  marry  some  banker's  daughter  with  two  hun- 
dred thousand  livres  a  year.  So  let  me  do  you  some  great 
service,  so  that  the  King  can  say  that  I  have  saved  the  throne. 
This  long  time  past  I  have  said :  '  Liberalism  no  longer  meets 
us  in  the  field  ;  Liberalism  has  given  up  conspiracy,  the  Car- 
bonari, and  violent  methods ;  '  it  is  undermining  us  and  pre- 
paring to  say  once  for  all :  '  Get  thee  hence  that  I  may  take 
thy  place  !  '  Do  you  think  that  I  pay  court  to  a  Rabourdin's 
wife  for  my  pleasure?  No;  I  had  information!  So  for  to- 
day there  are  two  things — the  adjournment  of  the  nominations 
and  your  sincere  support  at  my  election.  At  the  end  of  the 
session  you  shall  see  whether  I  have  not  paid  my  debt  with 
interest." 

For  all  answer  the  minister  handed  over  the  report. 

"And  I  will  tell  Rabourdin  that  you  postpone  him  till  Sat' 
urday?" 

The  minister  nodded.  In  a  few  minutes  the  messenger  had 
crossed  the  building  and  informed  Rabourdin  that  he  must  go 
to  the  minister  on  Saturday ;  for  that  then  the  Chamber  would 
be  engaged  with  petitions,  and  the  minister  would  have  the 
whole  day  at  liberty. 

Meanwhile  Saillard  went  on  his  errand  to  the  minister's 
wife  and  slipped  in  his  speech,  to  which  the  lady  replied,  with 


LES  EMPLOYES.  417 

dignity,  that  she  never  meddled  in  State  affairs,  and  beside, 
she  had  heard  that  Rabourdin  was  appointed.  Saillard  in 
alarm  went  up  to  Baudoyer's  office,  and  there  found  Dutocq, 
Godard,  and  Bixiou  in  a  state  of  exasperation  which  words 
fail  to  describe;  for  they  were  reading  the  rough  draft  of 
Rabourdin's  terrible  report. 

Bixiou  (^pointing  to  a  passage).  "  Here  you  are,  Saillard  : 
'  Saillard. — Cashiers  to  be  suppressed  throughout.  The  de- 
partments should  keep  accounts  current  with  the  Treasury. 
Saillard  is  well-to-do,  and  does  not  need  a  pension.'  Would 
you  like  to  see  your  son-in-law  ?  "  (turns  over  the  leaf.)  "Here 
he  is  :  •' Baudoyer. — Utterly  incompetent.  Dismiss  without 
pension;  he  is  well-to-do.'  And  our  friend  Godard"  {turns 
over  another  leaf).  "'Godard. — Dismiss.  Pension  one-third 
of  present  salary.'  In  short,  we  are  all  here.  Here  am  I — 
'An  artist  to  be  employed  at  the  opera,  the  Menus-Plaisirs, 
or  the  Museum,  witli  a  salary  from  the  Civil  List.  Plenty  of 
ability,  not  very  steady,  incapable  of  application,  a  restless 
disposition.'  Oh!  I  will  most  truly  give  you  enough  of  the 
artist." 

Saillard.  "  Cashiers  to  be  suppressed?  Why,  the  man  is 
a  monster !  " 

Bixiou.  "  What  has  he  to  say  about  our  mysterious  Des- 
roys?  "  (Turns  the  leaf  and  reads.)  '*  '  Desroys. — A  dan- 
gerous man,  in  that  he  holds  subversive  principles  that  can- 
not be  shaken.  As  a  son  of  a  member  of  the  Convention 
he  admires  that  institution;  he  may  become  a  pernicious  pub- 
licist.' " 

Baudoyer.     "A  detective  is  not  so  clever." 

Godard.  "I  shall  go  at  once  to  the  secretary-general  and 
lodge  a  complaint  in  form.  If  that  man  is  nominated,  we 
ought  all  to  resign  in  a  body." 

Dutocq.      "Listen,  gentlemen,  let  us  be  prudent.     If  you 
revolt  at  once,  we  should  be  accused  of  personal  motives  and 
a  desire  for  revenge.     No,  let  the  rumor  spread  ;  and  when 
27 


418  LES  EMPLOYES. 

the  whole  service  rises  in  protest,  your  proceedings  will  meet 
with  general  support." 

Bixiou.  "  Dutocq  works  on  the  principles  of  the  sublime 
Rossini's  great  aria  in  '  Basilio,'  which  proves  that  the 
mighty  composer  is  a  politic  man.  This  seems  to  me  to  be 
fair  and  reasonable.  I  think  of  leaving  my  card  on  Monsieur 
Rabourdin  to-morrow  morning;  I  shall  have  the  name  en- 
graved upon  it,  and  the  titles  underneath:  '  Bixiou :  Not 
very  steady,  incapable  of  application,  restless  disposition.'" 

GoDARD.  "  A  good  idea,  gentlemen.  Let  us  all  have  our 
cards   printed,  and    Rabourdin    shall   have    them   to-morrow 


morning." 


Baudoyer.  "Monsieur  Bixiou,  will  you  undertake  these 
little  details,  and  see  that  the  plates  are  destroyed  after  a 
single  card  has  been  printed  from  each?" 

DuTOCQ  (^faking  Bixiou  aside).  "Well,  will  you  draw  that 
caricature  now  ?  " 

Bixiou.  "  I  see,  my  dear  fellow,  that  you  have  been  in 
the  secret  for  ten  days."  {Looks  him  full  in  the  face.)  "Am 
I  going  to  be  chief  clerk's  assistant  ?" 

DuTOCQ.  "Yes,  upon  my  word  of  honor,  and  a  thousand 
francs  beside,  as  I  told  you.  You  do  not  know  what  a  service 
you  are  doing  to  powerful  personages." 

Bixiou.     "  Do  you  know  them  ?  " 

DuTOCQ.     "Yes." 

Bixiou.      "Very  well,  then,  I  want  to  speak  with  them." 

DuTOCQ  {drily).  "  Do  the  caricature  or  let  it  alone;  you 
vill  be  chief  clerk's  assistant  or  you  will  not." 

Bixiou.      "Well,  then,  let  us  see  those  thousand  francs." 

DuTOCQ.      "  You  shall  have  them  against  the  drawing." 

Bixiou.  "  Go  ahead  !  The  caricature  shall  go  the  round 
of  the  offices  to-morrow.  So  let  us  make  fools  of  the  Rabour- 
dins  !  "  {To  Saillard,  Godard,  and  Baudoyer,  who  are  con- 
ferring in  whispers.)  "We  are  going  to  set  our  neighbors 
in  a  ferment."     {Goes  out  with  Dutocq,  and  crosses  over  to 


LES  EMPLOYES.  419 

Rabourdin' s  office.  At  sight  of  him,  Fieury  and  Thuillier  show 
signs  of  excitement.')  "  Well,  gentlemen,  what  is  the  matter? 
All  that  I  told  you  just  now  is  so  true  that  you  may  have  ocular 
demonstration  at  this  moment  of  the  most  shameful  delation. 
Go  to  the  office  of  the  virtuous,  honest,  estimable,  upright, 
and  pious  Baudoyer  ;  he  is  'incompetent,'  at  any  rate,  in 
such  a  business  as  this  !  Your  chief  has  invented  a  sort  of 
guillotine  for  clerks,  tliat  is  certain.  Go  and  look  at  it,  fol- 
low the  crowd,  there  is  nothing  to  pay  if  you  are  not  satisfied, 
you  shall  have  the  full  benefit  of  your  misfortune  gratis.  What 
is  more,  the  appointments  have  been  postponed.  The  offices 
are  in  an  uproar ;  and  Rabourdin  has  just  heard  that  he  is  not 
to  work  with  the  minister  to-day.     Just  go  !  " 

Phellion  and  Poiret  stayed  behind.  Phellion  was  too  much 
attached  to  Rabourdin  to  go  in  search  of  proof  that  might 
injure  a  man  whom  he  had  no  wish  to  judge,  and  Poiret  was 
to  retire  in  five  days'  time.  Just  at  that  moment  Sebastien 
came  downstairs  to  collect  some  papers  to  be  included  with 
the  documents  for  signature.  He  was  sufficiently  astonished 
to  find  the  office  empty,  but  he  showed  no  sign  of  surprise. 

Phellion  {rising  to  his  feet,  a  rare  event).  "My  young 
friend,  do  you  know  what  is  going  on  ?  what  rumors  are  cur- 
rent with  respect  to  Mosieur  Rabourdin,  to  whom  you  are 
attached  ;  for  whom  "  {lojvering  his  voice  for  Sebastien' s  ear), 
"  for  whom  my  affection  is  as  great  as  my  esteem  ?  It  is  said 
that  he  has  been  so  imprudent  as  to  leave  a  report  of  the  clerks 
lying  about  somewhere "  {stops  suddenly  short,  for  Sebas- 
tien turns  as  pale  as  a  white  rose,  and  sinks  into  a  chair. 
Phellion  is  obliged  to  hold  him  in  his  inuscular  arms.)  "  Put  a 
key  down  his  back  ;   Mosieur  Poiret  !   have  you  a  key  ?  " 

Poiret.     "I  always  carry  my  door-key."     {Old  Poiret, 

junior,  pushes  his  key  down  Sebastien' s  collar ;  Phellion  brings 

a  glass  of  cold  water.      The  poor  boy  opens  his  eyes,  only  to  shed 

a  torrent  of  tears  ;  he  lays  his  head  on  Phellion' s  desk,  flings 

himself  down  in  a  heap  as  if  stricken  by  lightning,  and  sobs  in 


420  LES  EMPLOYES. 

such  a  heart-rending  fashion,  with  such  a  genuine  outpouring  of 
grief,  that  Poiret,  for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  is  touched  by  the 
sorrow  of  a  fellow-creature. ) 

Phellion  (raising  his  voice).  "  Come,  come,  my  young 
friend,  bear  up  !  One  must  have  courage  in  a  great  crisis  ! 
You  are  a  man.  Wliat  is  the  matter  !  What  is  there  to  upset 
you  so  in  this  affair?  it  is  out  of  all  reason." 

Sebastien  {through  his  sobs).  "/  have  ruined  M.  Rabour- 
din  !  I  left  the  paper  about ;  I  had  been  copying  it ;  I  have 
ruined  my  benefactor.  This  will  kill  me  !  Such  a  great 
man  !     A  man  that  might  have  been  a  minister  !  " 

Poiret  {blowing  his  nose).  "  Then  he  really  made  the  re- 
port?" 

Sebastien  (through  his  sobs).     "  But  it  was  for There  ! 

I  am  telling  his  secrets  now  !  Oh  !  that  miserable  Dutocq,  he 
took  it." 

At  that  the  tears  and  sobs  began  afresh,  and  grew  so  violent 
that  Rabourdin  came  out  of  his  office,  recognized  the  voice, 
and  went  upstairs.  He  found  Sebastien,  half-swooning,  like 
a  figure  of  Christ,  in  the  arms  of  Phellion  and  Poiret ;  and 
the  two  clerks,  with  countenances  distorted  by  compassion, 
grotesquely  playing  the  parts  of  the  Maries  in  the  composi- 
tion. 

Rabourdin.     "  What  is  the  matter,  gentlemen  ?  " 

Sebastien  (starting  up,  falls  on  his  knees  before  Rabourdin). 
"Oh,  sir,  I  have  ruined  you  !  That  list  !  Dutocq  is  showing 
it  about.     He  found  it  out,  no  doubt !  " 

Rabourdin  (composedly').  "  I  knew  it."  (Raises  Sebastien 
and  draws  him  away.)  "  My  friend,  you  are  a  child  !  "  (To 
Fhellion.)     "  Where  are  they  all  ?  " 

Phellion.  "They  have  gone  to  Monsieur  Baudoyer's 
study,  sir,  to  look  at  a  list  which  is  said " 

Rabourdin.  "That  will  do"  {goes  out  with  Sebastien. 
Poiret  and  Phellion,  overcome  with  astotiishment,  look  at  one 
another,  cotnpletely  at  a  loss). 


LES  EMPLOYES.  421 


1  > 


PoiRET  {Jo  PheUiofi).     "  Monsieur  Rabourdin 

Phellion  ijo  Poiret)     "  Monsieur  Rabourdin  ! 

PoiRET.     "Well,  if  ever  !     Monsieur  Rabourdin  !  " 

Phellion.  *•  Did  you  see  how  he  looked — quite  calm  and 
dignified  in  spite  of  everything? " 

Poiret  (ufif/i  a  grimace  intended  for  a  knowing  air).  "I 
should  not  be  at  all  surprised  if  there  were  something  at  the 
bottom  of  all  this." 

Phellion.    "A  man  of  honor,  blameless  and  stainless " 

Poiret.      "And  how  about  Dutocq?  " 

Phellion.  "  Mosieur  Poiret,  you  think  as  I  think  about 
Dutocq;  do  you  not  understand  me?" 

Poiret  (with   two  or  three  little  knowing  nods).     "  Yes." 

The  others  come  back. 

Fleury.  "  This  is  coming  it  strong  !  I  have  seen  it  with 
my  own  eyes,  and  yet  I  can't  believe  it !  M.  Rabourdin,  the 
best  of  men  !  Upon  my  word,  if  such  as  he  can  play  the 
sneak,  it  is  enough  to  sicken  you  with  virtue.  I  used  to  put 
Rabourdin  among  Plutarch's  heroes." 

Vimeux.      "Oh  !  it  is  true." 

Poiret  {bethinking  himself  that  he  has  but  five  days  to  stay). 
"  But,  gentlemen,  what  do  you  say  about  the  man  that  lay 
in  wait  for  Monsieur  Rabourdin  and  stole  the  papers?" 

Dutocq  slips  out  of  the  room. 

Fleury.     "A  Judas  Iscariot !     Who  is  he?" 

Phellion  (adroitly).  "  He  is  not  among  us,  that  is  cer- 
tain." 

Vimeux  (an  idea  beginning  to  dawn  upoti  him).  "It  is 
Dutocq!" 

Phellion.  "I  have  seen  no  proof  whatever,  mosieur. 
While  you  were  out  of  the  room,  that  young  fellow,  Monsieur 
de  la  Roche,  came  in  and  was  nearly  heart-broken  over  it. 
Look,  you  see  his  tears  on  my  desk." 

Poiret.  "  He  swooned  in  our  arms Oh  !  my  door- 
key  ;  dear,  dear !   it  is  still  down  his  back  !  "  (goes  out.) 


422  LES  EMPLOYES. 

ViMEUx.  "  The  minister  would  not  work  to-day  with 
Monsieur  Rabourdin  ;  the  head  of  the  staff  came  to  say  a 
word  or  two  to  Monsieur  Saillard  \  Monsieur  Baudoyer  was 
advised  to  make  application  for  the  cross  of  the  Legion  of 
Honor ,  one  will  be  granted  to  the  division  at  New  Year,  and 
it  is  to  go  to  Monsieur  Baudoyer.  Is  that  clear?  Monsieur 
Rabourdin  is  sacrificed  by  the  very  people  for  whom  he 
worked.  That  is  what  Bixiou  says.  We  were  all  dismissed 
except  Phellion  and  Sebastien." 

Du  Bruel  {comes  hi).     "  Well,  gentlemen,  is  it  true?" 

Thuillier.     "  Strictly  true." 

Du  Bruel.  "  Good-day,  gentlemen  "  (j>ufs  on  his  hat  and 
goes  ouf). 

Thuillier.  "That  vaudevilliste  does  not  waste  time  on 
file-firing;  he  is  off  to  the  Due  de  Rhetore  and  the  Due  de 
Maufrigneuse,  but  he  may  run  !  Colleville  is  to  be  our  chief, 
they  say." 

Phellion.  "Yet  he  seemed  to  be  attached  to  Monsieur 
Rabourdin." 

PoiRET  (returns').  "  I  had  all  the  trouble  in  the  world  to 
get  back  my  door-key.  The  youngster,  is  crying,  and  Mon- 
sieur Rabourdin  has  completely  disappeared."  {Dutocq  and 
Bixiou  come  in  together.') 

Bixiou.  "Well,  gentlemen,  queer  things  are  happening  in 
your  office!  Du  Bruel! — "  (Jooks  into  du  Bruel' s  cabinet.) 
"Gone?" 

Thuillier.     "Out." 

Bixiou.     "  And  Rabourdin  ?  " 

Fleury.  "Melted  away,  evaporated,  vanished  in  smoke! 
To  think  that  such  a  man,  the  best  of  men  ! " 

PoiRET  (Jo  Dutocq).  "  That  youngster  Sebastien,  in  his 
grief,  accused  you  of  taking  the  work,  Monsieur  Dutocq,  ten 
days  ago " 

Bixiou  {looking  at  Dutocq).  "My  dear  fellow,  you  must 
clear  yourself"  (all  the  clerks  stare  at  Dutocq). 


LES  EMPLOYES.  423 

DuTOCQ.     "  Where  is  the  little  viper  that  was  copying  it  ?  " 

Bixiou.  "How  do  you  know  that  he  was  copying  it? 
Nothing  but  a  diamond  can  cut  a  diamond,  my  dear  fellow  ! " 
(^Dutocq  goes  out.^ 

PoiRET.  "Look  here,  Monsieur  Bixiou;  I  have  only  five 
days  and  a  half  to  stay  in  the  office,  and  I  should  like  for  once 
— just  for  once — to  have  the  pleasure  of  understanding  you. 
Do  me  the  honor  to  explain  where  the  diamond  comes  in 
under  the  circumstances." 

Bixiou.  "It  means,  old  man  (for  I  am  quite  willing  to 
descend  to  your  level  for  once),  it  means  that  as  the  diamond 
alone  can  polish  the  diamond,  so  none  but  a  pry  is  a  match 
for  his  like." 

Fleury.     "'  'Pry  '  in  this  case  being  put  for  '  spy.'  " 

PoiRET.     "  I  do  not  understand " 

Bixiou.      "  Oh,  well,  another  time  you  will." 

M.  Rabourdin  had  hurried  away  to  the  minister.  His  ex- 
cellency was  at  the  Chamber.  Thither,  accordingly,  Rabour- 
din went  and  wrote  a  few  lines,  but  the  minister  was  on  his 
legs  in  the  midst  of  a  hot  discussion.  Rabourdin  waited,  not 
in  the  Salle  des  Conferences,  but  outside  in  the  courtyard  ;  he 
decided  in  spite  of  the  cold  to  take  up  his  post  by  his  excel- 
lency's carriage,  and  to  speak  with  him  as  he  came  out.  The 
sergeant-at-arms  told  him  that  a  storm  had  been  brewed  by 
the  nineteen  members  of  the  Extreme  Left,  and  there  had 
been  a  scene  in  the  House.  Rabourdin  meanwliile,  in  feverish 
excitement,  paced  up  and  down  in  the  courtyard.  He  waited 
for  five  mortal  hours.  At  half-past  six  the  House  rose,  and  the 
minister's  chasseur  came  out  with  a  message  for  the  coacliman. 

"  Hey,  Jean  !  His  excellency  has  gone  to  the  Palace  with 
the  minister  of  war ;  they  will  dine  together  afterward.  We 
are  to  fetch  them  at  ten  o'clock.  There  is  to  be  a  meeting  of 
the  council." 

Slowly  Rabourdin  walked  home  again  in  a  state  of  exhaus- 


424  LES  EMPLOYES. 

tion  easy  to  imagine.  It  was  seven  o'clock.  He  had  bareljr 
time  to  dress. 

"Well!"  his  wife  cried  joyously,  as  he  came  into  the 
drawing-room.     "  You  have  the  appointment  now." 

Rabourdin  raised  his  head  in  melancholy  anguish.  "I  am 
very  much  afraid  that  I  shall  never  set  foot  in  tlie  office  again." 

"What  !  "  cried  his  wife,  trembling  with  cruel  anxiety. 

"That  memorandum  of  mine  on  the  staff  has  been  the 
round  of  the  department ;  I  tried  to  speak  with  the  minister, 
and  could  not." 

A  vision  flashed  before  Celestine's  eyes  ;  some  demon  flung 
a  sudden  lurid  light  upon  her  last  conversation  with  des 
Lupeaulx. 

"If  I  had  behaved  like  a  vulgar  woman,"  she  thought, 
"  we  should  have  had  the  place." 

She  gazed  at  Rabourdin  with  something  like  anguish. 
There  was  a  dreary  silence,  and  at  dinner  both  were  absorbed 
in  musings. 

"  And  it  is  our  Wednesday  !  "  she  exclaimed. 

"All  is  not  lost,  dear  Celestine,"  he  answered,  putting  a 
kiss  upon  her  forehead  ;  "I  may  perhaps  see  the  minister  to- 
morrow morning,  and  all  will  be  cleared  up.  Sebastien  sat 
up  late  last  night,  all  the  fair  copies  are  made  and  in  order. 
I  will  put  the  whole  thing  on  the  minister's  desk,  and  beg 
him  to  go  through  it  with  me.  La  Briere  will  help  me.  A 
man  is  never  condemned  without  a  hearing." 

"I  am  curious  to  see  whether  Monsieur  des  Ivupeaulx  will 
come  to  us  to-day." 

"  He  !  Of  course  he  will  come,  he  will  not  fail.  There  is 
something  of  the  tiger  in  him — he  loves  to  lick  the  blood 
after  he  has  given  the  wound." 

"  My  poor  love,  I  do  not  know  how  a  man  that  could  think 
of  so  grand  a  reform  should  not  see,  at  the  same  time,  that 
no  one  must  hear  of  it.  Some  ideas  a  man  must  keep  within 
himself,  because  he,  and  he  alone,  can  carry  them  out.     Vou, 


LES  EMPLOYES.  425 

in  your  sphere,  should  have  done  as  Napoleon  did  in  his ;  he 
bent  and  twisted  and  crawled — yes,  crawled  ! — for  Bonaparte 
married  Barras'  mistress  to  gain  a  command.  You  should 
have  waited  ;  you  should  have  been  elected  as  a  deputy  ;  you 
should  have  watched  the  political  changes,  now  in  the  trough 
of  the  sea,  now  on  the  crest  of  a  wave ;  you  should  have 
adopted  Monsieur  de  Villele's  Italian  motto  Col  tempo,  other- 
wise rendered,  '  All  things  come  round  to  him  that  will  but 
wait.'  For  seven  years  it  has  been  Monsieur  de  Villele's 
aim  to  be  in  office;  he  took  the  first  step  in  1814,  when  he 
was  just  your  present  age,  with  a  protest  against  the  Charter. 
That  is  your  mistake;  you  have  been  ready  to  act  under 
orders  :   you  were  made  to  issue  them." 

The  arrival  of  Schinncr  the  painter  put  an  end  to  this  talk, 
but  Rabourdin  grew  thoughtful  over  his  wife's  words. 

Schinner  grasped  his  hand.  "An  artist's  devotion  is  of 
very  little  use,  my  dear  fellow;  but  at  such  times  as  these  we 
are  stanch,  we  artists.  I  got  an  evening  paper.  Baudoyer  is 
to  be  director,  I  see,  and  he  is  to  have  the  cross  of  the  Legion 
of  Honor." 

"  I  am  first  in  order  of  seniority,  and  I  have  been  twenty- 
four  years  in  the  service,"  smiled  Rabourdin. 

"  I  know  Monsieur  le  Comte  de  Serizv,  the  minister  of 
State,  pretty  well ;  if  you  like  to  make  use  of  him,  I  can  see 
hirn,"  said  Schinner. 

The  rooms  were  filled  with  persons  who  knew  nothing  of 
the  movements  of  the  administration.  Du  Bruel  did  not 
appear.  Mme.  Rabourdin  was  more  charming  and  in  higher 
spirits  than  usual ;  the  horse,  wounded  on  the  battlefield,  will 
summon  up  all  its  strength  to  carry  its  master. 

The  women  behaved  charmingly  to  her,  now  that  she  was 
defeated. 

"  She  is  very  brave,"  said  some. 

"And  yet  she  was  very  attentive  to  des  Lupeaulx,"  the 
Baronne  du  CliStelet  remarked  to  the  Vicomtesse  de  Fontaine. 


426  LES  EMPLOYES. 


"Then  do  you  think- 


"  If  so,  Monsieur  Rabourdin  would  at  least  have  had  the 
cross,"  said  Mnie.  de  Camps,  defending  her  friend. 

Toward  ten  o'clock  des  Lupeaulx  appeared.  To  give  an 
idea  of  his  appearance,  it  can  only  be  said  that  his  spectacles 
looked  melancholy,  while  there  was  laughter  in  his  eyes  ;  the 
glass  veiled  their  expression  so  completely  that  no  one  but  a 
physiognomist  could  have  seen  the  diabolical  gleam  in  them. 
He  grasped  Rabourdin's  hand,  and  Rabourdin  could  only 
submit  to  the  pressure. 

"We  must  have  some  talk  together  by-and-by,"  he  said,  as 
he  seated  himself  beside  the  fair  Rabourdin,  who  behaved  to 
admiration.  "Ah  !  you  are  great,"  he  said,  with  a  side- 
glance  at  her;  "I  find  you  as  I  imagined  you — sublime  in 
defeat.  Do  you  kijow  how  very  seldom  people  respond  to 
our  expectations  of  them  !  And  so  you  are  not  overwhelmed 
by  defeat.  You  are  riglit,  we  shall  triumph,"  he  continued, 
lowering  his  voice.  "Your  fate  will  always  be  in  your  own 
hands  so  long  as  you  have  an  ally  in  a  man  who  worships  you. 
We  will  hold  a  council." 

"But  Baudoyer  is  appointed,  is  he  not?" 

"Yes." 

"And  the  cross?" 

"  Not  yet,  but  he  is  going  to  have  it." 

"Well?" 

"You  do  not  understand  policy." 

To  Mme.  Rabourdin  it  seemed  as  if  that  evening  would 
never  come  to  an  end.  Meanwhile,  in  the  Place  Royale  a 
comedy  was  being  played,  a  comedy  that  is  always  repeated 
in  seven  different  salons  after  every  change  of  government. 
The  Saillards'  sitting-room  was  full.  M.  and  Mme.  Transon 
came  at  eight  o'clock.  Mme.  Transon  kissed  Mme.  Baudoyer 
nee  Saillard.  M.  Bataille,  the  captain  of  the  National  Guard, 
came  with  his  wife  and  the  cure  of  Saint-Paul's. 

"  Monsieur  Baudoyer,  I  want  to  be  the  first  to  congratulate 


LES  EMPLOYES.  427 

you,"  said  Mme.  Transon  ;  "your  talents  have  met  with  their 
deserts.      Well,  you  have  fairly  earned  your  advancement." 

"So  now  you  are  a  director,"  added  M.  Transon,  rubbing 
his  hands;   "it  is  a  great  honor  for  the  Quarter." 

"And  without  scheming  for  it,  one  may  say  indeed,"  cried 
old  Saillard.  '■'We  are  not  intriguers;  we  Ao  not  go  to  the 
minister's  parties.'' 

Uncle  Mitral  rubbed  his  nose,  and  smiled  and  looked  at  his 
niece.  Elizabeth  was  talking  with  Gigonnet.  Falleix  did 
not  know  what  to  think  of  the  blindness  of  Saillard  and  Bau- 
doyer.  Dutocq,  Bixiou,  du  Bruel,  and  Godard  came  in,  fol- 
lowed by  Colleville,  now  chief  clerk. 

"What  chumps!"  said  Bixiou,  in  an  undertone  for  du 
Bruel's  benefit.  "What  a  fine  caricature  one  might  make  of 
them — a  lot  of  flat-fish,  stock-fish,  and  winkles  all  dancing  a 
saraband." 

"Monsieur  le  Directeur,  "  began  Colleville,  "I  have  come 
to  congratulate  you,  or  rather  we  all  congratulate  ourselves 
upon  your  appointment,  and  we  have  come  to  assure  you  of 
our  zealous  cooperation." 

M.  and  Mme.  Baudoyer,  Isidore's  father  and  mother,  were 
there  to  enjoy  the  triumph  of  their  son  and  his  wife.  Uncle 
Bidault  had  dined  at  home;  his  little  twinkling  eyes  dismayed 
Bixiou. 

"There  is  a  character  that  would  do  for  a  vaudeville,"  he 
said,  pointing  him  out  to  du  Bruel.  "  What  does  that  fellow 
sell  ?  Such  an  odd  fish  ought  to  be  hung  out  for  a  sign  at  the 
door  of  an  old  curiosity  shop.  What  a  greatcoat  !  I  thought 
that  no  one  but  Poiret  could  keep  such  a  thing  on  exhibition 
after  ten  years  of  exposure  to  the  inclemencies  of  the  seasons." 

"  Baudoyer  is  magnificent,"  said  du  Bruel. 

"  Stunning  !  "   returned  Bixiou. 

"Gentlemen,"  said  Baudoyer,  "this  is  my  own  uncle, 
Monsieur  Mitral ;  and  this  is  my  wife's  great-uncle.  Monsieur 
Bidault  !" 


428  LES  EMPLOYES. 

Gigonnet  and  Mitral  looked  keenly  at  the  clerks;  the 
metallic  gleam  of  gold  seemed  to  glitter  in  the  old  men's 
eyes ;  it  impressed  the  two  scoffers. 

"Did  you  take  a  good  look  at  that  pair  of  uncles,  eh?" 
asked  Bixiou,  as  they  walked  under  the  arcades  of  the  Palais 
Royal.  "Two  specimens  of  the  genus  Shylock.  They  go 
the  market,  I  will  be  bound,  and  lend  money  at  a  hundred 
per  cent,  per  week.  They  lend  on  pledges,  traffic  in  clothes, 
gold  lace,  cheese,  women  and  children  ;  they  be  Arabs,  they 
be  Greeks,  they  be  Genoese-Genevese-Lombard  Jews;  brought 
forth  by  a  Tartar  and  suckled  by  a  she- wolf." 

"Uncle  Mitral  was  a  bailiff  once,  I  am  certain,"  said 
Godard. 

"  There  you  see  !  "  said  du  Bruel. 

"I  must  just  go  and  see  the  sheets  pulled  off,"  continued 
Bixiou  ;  "  but  I  should  dearly  like  to  make  a  careful  study  of 
Monsieur  Rabourdin's  salon  ;  you  are  very  lucky,  du  Bruel, 
you  can  go  there." 

"  I  ?  "  said  du  Bruel ;  "  what  should  I  do  there  ?  My  face 
does  not  lend  itself  to  the  expression  of  condolence.  And 
beside,  it  is  very  vulgar  nowadays  to  dance  attendance  on 
persons  out  of  office." 

At  midnight  Mine.  Rabourdin's  drawing-room  was  empty  ; 
three  persons  only  remained — des  Lupeaulx  and  the  master 
and  mistress  of  the  house.  When  Schinner  went,  and  M. 
and  Mme.  Octave  de  Camps*  had  taken  their  leave,  des  Lu- 
peaulx rose  with  a  mysterious  air,  stood  with  his  back  to  the 
clock,  and  looked  at  the  husband  and  wife  in  turn. 

"  Nothing  is  lost,  my  friends,"  he  said,  "  for  we  remain  to 
you — the  minister  and  I.  Dutocq,  put  between  two  powers, 
chose  the  stronger,  as  it  seemed  to  him.  He  served  the  grand 
almoner  and  the  Court  and  played  me  false ;  it  is  all  in  the 
day's  work,  a  man  in  politics  never  complains  of  treachery. 
Still,  Baudoyer  is  sure  to  be  cashiered  in  a  few  months'  time 
*  Vide  "  Madame  Firmiani." 


LES  EMPLOYES.  429 

and  transferred   to   the  prefecture  of  police,  for  the  grand 
ahnonry  will  not  desert  him." 

With  that,  des  Lupeaulx  broke  out  into  a  long  tirade  over 
the  grand  almonry,  and  expatiated  on  the  risks  run  by  a 
Government  that  looked  to  the  church  and  the  Jesuits  for 
support.  Still,  it  is  worth  while  to  point  out  that,  though  the 
Liberal  papers  laid  such  stress  upon  the  influence  of  Court 
patronage  and  the  grand  almonry,  neither  of  these  counted 
for  much  in  Baudoyer's  promotion.  Petty  intrigue  died  away 
in  the  higher  spheres  because  greater  questions  were  at  stake. 
Perhaps  M.  Gaudron's  importunities  extorted  a  few  words  in 
Baudoyer's  favor,  but  at  the  minister's  first  remark  the  matter 
was  allowed  to  drop.  Passion  in  itself  did  the  work  of  a  very 
efficient  spy  among  the  members  of  the  congregation  ;  they 
used  to  denounce  each  other.  And  surely  it  was  permissible 
to  oppose  that  society  to  the  brazen-fronted  fraternity  of  the 
doctrine  summed  up  by  the  formula  :  "  Heaven  helps  him  who 
helps  himself."  As  for  the  occult  power  exercised  by  the 
congregation,  it  was  for  the  most  part  wielded  by  subordinates 
who  used  the  name  of  that  body  to  conjure  with  for  their 
private  ends.  Liberal  rancor,  in  fact,  delighted  to  represent 
the  grand  almonry  as  a  giant ;  in  politics,  in  the  administra- 
tion, in  the  armv  or  the  civil  service.  Fear  alwavs  makes 
idols  for  itself.  At  this  moment  Baudoyer  believed  in  the 
grand  almonry,  and  all  the  while  the  only  almonry  that  be- 
friended him  held  its  session  at  the  Cafe  Themis.  There  are 
times  in  the  history  of  the  world  when  everything  that  happens 
amiss  is  set  down  to  the  account  of  some  one  institution,  or 
man  in  power;  nobody  will  give  them  credit  for  their  abili- 
ties, they  serve  as  synonyms  and  equivalent  terms  for  crass 
stupidity.  As  M.  de  Talleyrand  was  supposed  to  hail  every 
political  event  with  an  epigram,  so  in  the  same  manner  the 
grand  almonry  did  and  undid  everything  at  this  period.  Un- 
luckily, it  did  and  undid  nothing  whatever.  Its  inflr.cnce 
was  not  in  the  hands  of  a  Cardinal  Richelieu  or  a  Cardinal 


430  LES  EMPLOYES. 

Mazarin  ;  it  fell,  on  the  contrary,  to  a  sort  of  Cardinal  Fleury, 
the  kind  of  man  that  is  timid  for  five  years  and  rash  for  a  day. 
At  Saint-Merri,  at  a  later  day,  the  doctrine  above  mentioned 
did  with  impunity  what  Charles  X.  only  attempted  to  do  in 
July,  1830.  If  the  proviso  as  to  the  censorship  had  not  been 
so  stupidly  inserted  in  the  new  Charter,  journalism  also  would 
have  seen  its  Saint-Merri.  The  Orleans  Branch  would  have 
carried  out  the  scheme  of  Charles  X.,  with  the  law  at  its 
back. 

"  Stop  on  under  Baudoyer,  summon  up  courage  for  that," 
continued  des  Lupeaulx,  "  be  a  true  politician,  put  generous 
thoughts  and  impulses  aside,  confine  yourself  to  you  duty,  say 
not  a  word  to  your  director,  never  give  him  advice,  and  act 
only  upon  his  orders.  In  three  months'  time  Baudoyer  will 
leave  the  department  ;  they  will  either  dismiss  him  or  transfer 
him  to  some  other  sphere  of  activity.  Perhaps  he  may  go  to 
the  Household.  Twice  in  my  life  I  have  been  buried  under 
an  avalanclie  of  folly  in  this  way;  I  let  it  go  by." 

"Yes,"  said  Rabourdin,  "but  you  were  not  slandered, 
your  honor  was  not  involved,  you  were  not  compromised " 

Des  Lupeaulx  interrupted  him  with  a  peal  of  Homeric 
laughter.  "  Why,  that  is  the  daily  bread  of  every  man  of 
mark  in  the  whole  fair  realm  of  France  !  There  are  two  ways 
of  taking  it ;  you  can  go  under,  which  means  you  pack  your- 
self oflf  and  plant  cabbages  somewhere  or  other  ;  or  you  rise 
above  it,  and  walk  fearlessly  on  without  so  much  as  turning 
your  head." 

"  In  my  own  case,"  said  Rabourdin,  "  there  is  but  one  way 
of  untying  the  slip-knot  which  espionage  and  treachery  have 
tightened  about  my  neck  ;  it  is  this — I  must  have  an  explana- 
tion with  the  minister  at  once  ;  and  if  you  are  as  sincerely 
attached  to  me  as  you  say,  it  is  in  your  power  to  bring  me 
face  to  face  with  him  to-morrow." 

"  Do  you  wish  to  lay  your  plan  of  administrative  reform 
before  him  ?" 


LES  EMPLOYES.  -131 

Rabourdin  bowed. 

"Very  well  then,  intrust  your  projects  and  memoranda  to 
me,  and  he  shall  spend  the  night  over  them,  I  will  engage." 

"Then  let  us  go  together,"  Rabourdin  answered  quickly; 
"  for  after  six  years  of  work,  at  least  I  may  expect  the  gratifi- 
cation of  explaining  it  for  an  hour  or  two  to  a  member  of  his 
majesty's  Government,  for  the  minister  cannot  choose  but 
commend  my  perseverance." 

Des  Lupeauix  hesitated  for  a  moment  ;  Rabourdin's  tena- 
city of  purpose  had  put  him  on  a  road  in  which  there  was 
no  cover  for  duplicity,  so  he  looked  at  Mme.  Rabourdin. 
"  Which  shall  turn  the  scale?  "  he  asked  himself;  "  my  hatred 
of  him,  my  liking  for  her  ?  " 

"If  you  cannot  trust  me,"  he  returned  after  a  pause,  "I 
can  see  that,  as  far  as  I  am  concerned,  you  will  always  be  the 
writer  of  that  'secret  note.'     Farewell,  madame." 

Mme.  Rabourdin  bowed  coldly.  Celestine  and  Xavier  went 
to  their  own  rooms  without  a  word,  so  heavily  their  misfortune 
lay  upon  them.  The  wife  thought  of  her  own  unpleasant 
position.  The  chief  clerk  was  making  up  his  mind  never  to 
set  foot  in  the  office  again  ;  he  was  lost  in  far-reaching  thouglits. 
This  step  was  to  change  the  course  of  his  life  ;  he  must  strike 
out  a  new  path.  He  sat  all  night  before  his  fire  ;  Celestine, 
in  her  night-dress,  stole  in  on  tip-toe  now  and  again,  but  he 
did  not  see  her. 

"Since  I  must  go  back  for  the  last  time  to  take  away  my 
papers  and  to  put  Baudoyer  in  possession,  let  us  try  the  effect 
of  my  resignation." 

He  drafted  his  resignation,  meditated  over  his  expressions, 
and  wrote  the  following  letter  : 

"  MoNSEiGNEUR  : — I  have  the  honor  to  inclose  my  resigna- 
tion in  tlie  same  cover;  but  I  venture  to  believe  that  your 
excellency  will  recollect  that  I  said  that  I  had  placed  my 
honor  in  your  hands,  and  that  an  immediate  explanation  was 


432  LES  EMPLOY&S. 

necessary.  The  explanation  which  I  implored  in  vain  would 
probably  now  be  useless,  for  a  fragment  of  my  work  has  been 
surreptitiously  taken  and  distorted  and  misinterpreted  by 
malevolence,  and  I  am  compelled  to  withdraw  before  the 
tacit  censure  of  those  in  authority.  Your  excellency  may 
have  thought,  when  I  tried  to  obtain  an  interview  that  morn- 
ing, that  I  wished  to  speak  of  my  own  advancement,  whereas 
I  was  thinking  only  of  the  honor  of  your  excellency's  depart- 
ment and  the  public  good;  it  is  of  some  consequence  to  me 
that  your  excellency  should  lie  under  no  misapprehension  on 
this  head,"  and  the  letter  ended  with  the  usual  formulas. 

By  half-past  seven  o'clock  the  sacrifice  had  been  made,  the 
whole  manuscript  had  been  burnt.  Tired  out  with  thought 
and  overcome  by  moral  suffering,  Rabourdin  fell  into  a  doze, 
with  his  head  resting  on  the  back  of  the  armchair.  A  strange 
sensation  awakened  him  ;  he  felt  hot  tears  falling  on  his  hands, 
and  saw  his  wife  kneeling  beside  him.  Celestine  had  come  in 
and  read  the  letter.  She  understood  the  full  extent  of  their 
ruin.  They  were  reduced  to  live  upon  four  thousand  livres; 
and,  reckoning  up  her  debts,  she  found  that  they  amounted  to 
thirty-two  thousand  francs.  It  was  the  most  sordid  poverty 
of  all.  And  the  noble  man  that  had  put  such  trust  in  her  had 
no  suspicion  of  the  way  in  which  she  had  abused  his  confi- 
dence. Celestine,  fair  as  the  Magdalen,  was  sobbing  at  his 
feet. 

"The  misfortune  is  complete,"  Xavier  exclaimed  in  his 
dismay;  "dishonored  in  the  department,  dishonored " 

A  gleam  of  stainless  honor  flashed  from  Celestine's  eyes  ; 
she  sprang  up  like  a  frightened  horse,  her  eyes  flashed  light- 
nings. 

"I,  // "  she  cried  in  sublime  tones.  "Am  I,  too,  an  or- 
dinary wife  ?  If  I  had  faltered,  would  you  not  have  had  your 
appointment?  But  it  is  easier  to  believe  that  than  to  believe 
the  truth." 


1 


LES  EMPLOYES.  433 

"  What  is  it  ?  "  asked  Rabourdin. 

"  You  shall  have  it  all  in  a  few  words,"  said  she  ;  "  we  owe 
thirty  thousand  francs." 

Rabourdin  caught  her  to  him  in  a  frenzy  of  joy,  and  made 
her  sit  on  his  knee. 

'•  Never  mind,  darling,"  he  said,  and  a  great  kindness  that 
slid  into  the  tones  of  his  voice  changed  the  bitterness  of  her 
tears  into  something  vaguely  and  strangely  sweet.  "I,  too, 
have  made  mistakes.  I  worked  for  my  country  to  very  little 
purpose;  when  I  thought,  at  any  rate,  I  might  have  done 
something  worth  the  doing.  Now  I  will  start  out  on  a  new 
path.  If  I  had  sold  spices  all  this  while,  we  should  be  mil- 
lionaires by  now.  Very  well,  let  us  sell  spices.  You  are  only 
twenty-eight  years  old,  my  darling.  In  ten  years'  time,  hard 
work  will  give  you  back  the  luxury  that  you  love,  though  we 
mubt  give  it  up  now  for  a  little  while.  I,  too,  darling,  am  not 
an  ordinary  husband.  We  will  sell  the  farm  ;  the  value  of  the 
land  has  been  going  up  for  seven  years ;  the  surplus  and  the 
furniture  will  pay  my  debts." 

In  Celestine's  kiss  there  was  love  given  back  a  thousandfold 
for  that  generous  word. 

"And  then  we  shall  have  a  hundred  thousand  francs  to  put 
into  some  business  or  other.  In  a  month's  time  I  shall  find 
an  investment.  If  Saillard  happened  upon  a  Martin  Falleix, 
chance  cannot  fail  us.  Wait  breakfast  for  me.  I  will  come 
back  from  the  minister  with  my  neck  free  of  that  miserable 
yoke." 

Cclcstine  held  her  husband  in  a  tight  clasp,  with  super- 
human force  ;  for  the  might  of  love  gives  a  woman  more  than 
a  mian's  strength,  more  power  than  the  utmost  transports  of 
rage  give  to  the  strong. 

She  was  hysterically  laughing  and  crying,  talking  and  sob- 
bing all  at  once. 

When    Rabourdin    went    out  at    eight  o'clock,   the    porter 
handed  him  the  burlesque  visiting  cards  sent  in  by  Baudoyer, 
28 


484  LES  EMPLOYES. 

Bixiou,  Godard,  and  the  rest.  Nevertheless,  he  went  to  the 
office,  and  found  Sebastien  waiting  for  him  at  the  door  ;  the 
lad  begged  him  not  to  attempt  to  enter  the  place,  a  scurrilous 
caricature  was  being  handed  about. 

"  If  you  wish  to  alleviate  the  bitterness  of  my  fall,  bring  me 
that  drawing  ;  for  I  am  just  taking  my  resignation  myself  to 
Ernest  de  la  Bridre,  so  that  it  may  not  be  twisted  out  of  all 
knowledge  on  its  way  to  headquarters,  I  have  my  reasons  for 
asking  to  see  the  caricature." 

Rabourdin  waited  till  he  was  sure  that  his  letter  was  in  the 
minister's  hands;  then  he  went  down  to  the  courtyard.  Se- 
bastien gave  him  the  lithographed  drawing.  There  were 
tears  in  the  boy's  eyes. 

"It  is  very  clever,"  said  Rabourdin,  and  the  face  that  he 
turned  upon  the  supernumerary  was  as  serene  as  the  Saviour's 
brow  beneath  the  crown  of  thorns. 

He  walked  in  quietly  as  usual,  and  went  straight  to  Bau- 
doyer's  general  office  to  give  the  necessary  explanations  be- 
fore that  slave  of  red-tape  entered  upon  his  new  duties  as 
director. 

"Tell  Monsieur  Baudoyer  there  is  no  time  to  lose,"  he 
added  before  Godard  and  the  clerks.  "My  resignation  is 
now  in  the  minister's  hands,  and  I  do  not  choose  to  stay  in 
the  office  five  minutes  longer  than  I  can  help." 

Then,  catching  sight  of  Bixiou,  Rabourdin  walked  up  to 
him,  held  out  the  drawing,  and  said,  to  the  astonishment  of 
the  clerks — 

'•Was  I  not  right  when  I  said  that  you  were  an  artist? 
Only  it  is  a  pity  that  you  used  your  pencil  against  a  man  whom 
it  was  impossible  to  judge  in  such  a  maniier,  or  in  the  offices. 
But  people  ridicule  everything  in  France — even  God  Him- 
self." 

With  that  he  drew  Baudoyer  into  the  late  La  Billardierc's 
rooms.  At  the  door  he  met  Phellion  and  Sebastien.  Tiiey 
alone  dared  to  show   that  they  were  faithful  to  the  accused. 


LES  EMPLOY&S.  435 

even  in  this  great  shipwreck.  Rabourdin  saw  the  tears  in 
Phellion's  eyes,  and  in  spite  of  himself  he  wrung  the  clerk's 
hand. 

"  Mosieur,"  the  good  fellow  said,  "  if  we  can  be  of  any  use 
whatever,  command  us " 

"  Come  in,  my  friends,"  Rabourdin  said  with  a  gracious 
dignity.  "  Sebastien,  my  boy,  send  in  your  resignation  by 
Laurent ;  you  are  sure  to  be  implicated  in  the  slander  that  has 
driven  me  from  my  place,  but  I  will  take  care  of  your  future. 
We  will  go  together." 

Sebastien  burst  into  tears. 

M.  Rabourdin  closeted  himself  with  M.  Baudoyer  in  the 
late  La  Billardiere's  room,  and  Phellion  assisted  him  to  ex- 
plain the  diflficulties  of  the  position  to  the  new  head  of  the 
division.  With  each  new  file  of  papers  displayed  by  Rabour- 
din, with  the  opening  of  every  pasteboard  case,  Baudoyer's 
little  eyes  grew  large  as  saucers, 

"Farewell,  monsieur,"  concluded  Rabourdin,  with  ironical 
gravity. 

Sebastien  meantime  made  up  a  packet  of  papers  belonging 
to  the  chief  clerk  and  took  them  away  in  a  cab.  Rabourdin 
crossed  the  great  courtyard  to  wait  on  the  minister.  All  the 
clerks  in  the  building  were  at  the  windows.  Rabourdin. 
waited  for  a  few  minutes,  but  the  minister  made  no  sign. 
Then,  accompanied  by  Phellion  and  Sebastien,  he  went  out. 
Phellion  bravely  went  as  far  as  the  Rue  Duphot  with  the  fallen 
official,  by  way  of  expressing  his  admiration  and  respect ;  then 
he  returned  to  his  desk,  quite  satisfied  with  himself.  He  had 
paid  funeral  honors  to  a  great  unappreciated  talent  for  admin- 
istration. 

Bixiou  {as  Phellion  comes  in).  "  Victrix  causa  diis placuit, 
sed  vicia  Catoni. ' ' 

Phellion.     "  Yes,  monsieur." 

PoiRET.      "  What  does  that  mean  ?  " 

Fleurv.     "It   means  that   the   clericals   rejoice,  and  that 


436  LES  EMPLOYES. 

Monsieur  Rabourdin  goes  out  with  the  esteem  of  all  men  of 
honor." 

DuTOCQ  (nettled').     ' '  You  talked  very  differently  yesterday. ' ' 

Fleury.  "  Say  another  word  to  me,  and  you  shall  feel  my 
fist  in  your  face.  You  sneaked  Monsieur  Rabourdin's  work, 
that  is  certain  !  "  (^Dutocq  goes  out.')  "  Now  go  and  com- 
plain to  your  Monsieur  des  Lupeaulx,  you  spy  !  " 

Bixiou  i^gritining  and  grimacing  like  a  monkey).  "  I  am 
curious  to  see  how  the  division  will  get  on.  Monsieur  Ra- 
bourdin was  such  a  remarkable  man  that  he  must  have  had 
something  in  view  when  he  made  that  list.  The  department 
is  losing  an  uncommonly  clever  head  "  (rubbing  his  hands). 

Laurent.  "Monsieur  Fleurv  is  wanted  in  the  secretary's 
office." 

Omnes.     "Sacked!" 

Fleury  (from  the  door).  "It  is  all  one  to  me ;  I  have  got 
a  berth  as  a  responsible  editor.  I  can  lounge  about  all  day,  or 
find  something  amusing  to  do  in  the  newspaper  office." 

Bixiou.  "  Dutocq  has  had  poor  old  Desroys  dismissed 
already;  he  was  accused  of  wanting  to  cut  off  people's 
heads " 

Thuillier.      '^  Les  tites  des  rois  ?  ''  (Desroys.) 

Bixiou.     "  Accept  my  congratulations.     That  is  neat." 

Enter  Colleville  (exultant).  "  Gentlemen,  I  am  your 
chief  clerk  !  " 

Thuillier  (embracing  him).  "  Oh,  my  friend,  if  I  were 
chief  myself,  I  should  not  be  so  pleased  !  " 

Bixiou.  "  His  wife  did  that  stroke  of  business,  so  it  is 
not  a  master-stroke." 

Poiret.     "  I  should  like  to  know  the  meaning  of  all  this." 

Bixiou.  "  You  want  to  know?  There  it  is.  The  Cham- 
ber is,  and  always  will  be,  the  antechamber  of  the  Adminis- 
tration, the  Court  is  the  boudoir,  the  ordinary  way  is  the 
cellar,  the  bed  is  made  now  more  than  ever  in  the  little 
b}-ways  thereof." 


LES  EMPLOY&S.  437 

PoiRET.  "Monsieur  Bixiou,  explain  yourself,  I  beg." 
Bixiou.  "  I  will  give  you  a  paraphrase  of  ray  opinion. 
If  you  mean  to  be  anything  at  last,  you  must  be  everything  at 
first.  Obviously,  administrative  reforms  must  be  made  ;  for, 
upon  my  word  and  honor,  if  the  employes  rob  the  Govern- 
ment of  the  time  they  ought  to  give  to  it,  the  Government 
robs  them  in  return  to  make  matters  even.  We  do  little  be- 
cause we  get  next  to  nothing ;  there  are  far  too  many  of  us 
for  the  work  to  be  done,  and  La  Vertueuse  Rabourdin  saw  all 
that !  That  great  man  among  the  scribes  foresaw  the  inevita- 
ble result,  gentlemen,  the  *  working  '  (as  simpletons  are  pleased 
to  call  it)  of  our  admirable  Liberal  institutions.  The 
Chamber  will  soon  want  to  meddle  with  the  Administration, 
and  officials  will  want  to  be  legislators.  The  Government 
will  try  to  administer  the  laws,  and  the  Administration  will 
try  to  govern  the  country.  Laws,  accordingly,  will  be  trans- 
formed into  rules  ana  ivigulations,  and  regulations  will  be 
treated  as  laws.  God  made  this  epoch  for  those  that  can 
enjoy  a  joke.  I  am  looking  on  in  admiration  at  the  spectacle 
set  forth  for  us  by  Louis  XVIIL,  the  greatest  wag  of  modern 
times  "  {general  amazement).  "And  if  France,  gentlemen,  the 
best  administered  country  in  Europe,  is  in  such  a  way,  think 
what  a  state  the  others  must  be  in.  Poor  countries  !  I  won- 
der how  they  get  on  at  all  without  the  two  Chambers,  the 
Liberty  of  the  Press,  the  Report,  the  Memorial,  and  the 
Circular,  and  a  whole  army  of  clerks  !  Think,  now,  how  do 
they  contrive  to  have  an  army  or  a  navy  ?  How  can  they  exist 
when  there  is  no  one  to  weigh  the  pros  and  cons  of  every 
breath  they  draw  and  every  mouthful  that  they  eat  ?  Can 
that  sort  of  thing  be  called  a  government  or  a  country  ? 
These  funny  fellows  that  travel  about  have  stood  me  out  that 
foreigners  pretend  to  have  a  policy  of  their  own,  and  that 
they  enjoy  a  certain  influence  ;  but,  there — I  pity  them  \ 
They  know  nothing  of  '  the  spread  of  enlightenment ; '  they 
cannot    '  set    ideas  in  circulation  ; '    they  have  no  free   and 


488  LES  EMPLOYES. 

independent  tribunes ;  they  are  sunk  in  barbarism.  There 
is  no  nation  like  the  French  for  intelligence  !  Do  you  grasp 
that,  Monsieur  Poiret  ?  "  (JPoiret  looks  as  if  he  had  received 
a  sudden  shock.')  "  Can  you  understand  how  a  country  can 
do  without  heads  of  divisions,  directors-general,  and  dis- 
pense with  a  great  staff  of  officials  that  is,  and  has  been,  the 
pride  of  France  and  of  the  Emperor  Napoleon,  who  had  his 
very  sufficient  reasons  for  creating  places  to  fill  ?  But,  there 
— since  these  countries  have  the  impudence  to  exist ;  since 
the  War  Office  at  Vienna  employs  scarcely  a  hundred  clerks 
all  told  (whereas  with  us,  little  as  they  expected  it  before  the 
Revolution,  salaries  and  pensions  now  eat  up  one-third  of  the 
revenue),  I  will  sum  up  by  suggesting  that  as  the  Academic 
des  Inscriptions  et  Belles  Lettres  has  very  little  to  do,  it 
might  as  well  offer  a  prize  for  the  solution  of  the  following 
problem:  'Which  is  the  better  constituted — the  State  that 
does  a  great  deal  with  a  few  officials,  or  the  State  that  does 
little  and  keeps  plenty  of  officials  to  do  it  ?'  " 

Poiret.     "  Is  that  your  last  word  ?  " 

Bixiou.  "J^a,  mein  Herr.'  Oui,  monsieur!  Si,  signor ! 
Da  /     I  spare  you  the  other  languages." 

Poiret  iraisifig  his  hands  to  heaven).  "Good  Lord!  and 
they  tell  me  that  you  are  clever  !  " 

Bixiou.     "  Then  did  you  not  understand  after  all  ?  " 

Phellion.  "Anyhow,  there  is  plenty  of  sense  in  that  last 
remark " 

Bixiou.  "It  is  like  the  budget,  as  complicated  as  it  seems 
to  be  simple  ;  and  thus  I  set  it  for  you,  like  an  illuminating 
lamp  upon  the  edge  of  that  break-neck  precipice,  that  hole, 
that  abyss,  volcano,  or  what  not,  which  the  '  Constitutionnel ' 
calls  *  the  political  horizon.'  " 

Poiret.  "  I  would  rather  have  an  explanation  that  I  can 
understand." 

Bixiou.  "Long  live  Rabourdin  !  that  is  my  opinion. 
Are  you  satisfied  ?  " 


LES  EMPLOYES.  439 

CoLLEViLLE  {gravely).  "  Tiiere  is  only  one  thing  to  be 
said  ay:ainst  Monsieur  Rabourdin." 

PoiRET.      "  Wiiat  is  it  ?" 

CoLLEViLLE.  "  He  was  not  a  chief  clerk  ;  he  was  a  states- 
man." 

Phellion  (^planting  himself  in  front  of  Bixiou).  "  Mosieur, 
if  you  appreciated.  Monsieur  Rabourdin  so  well,  what  made 
you  draw  that  disgus — that  inf — that  shocking  caricature?" 

Bixiou.  "  How  about  that  wager?  Do  you  forget  that  I 
was  playing  the  devil's  game,  and  that  your  office  owes  me  a 
dinner  at  the  Rocher  de  Cancale  ?  " 

PoiRET  {tnuch  ruffled).  "  It  seems  to  be  written  that  1  am 
to  leave  this  place  without  comprehending  a  single  idea  in 
anything  that  Monsieur  Bixiou  says." 

Bixiou.  "It  is  your  own  fault.  Ask  these  gentlemen  ! 
Gentlemen,  did  you  understand  the  gist  of  my  observations  ? 
Were  they  just  ?     Were  they  luminous  ?  " 

Omnes.     "  Yes,  alas  !  " 

MiNARD,  "  Here  is  proof  of  it :  I  have  just  sent  in  my 
resignation.  Good-day,  gentlemen  ;  I  am  going  into  busi- 
ness  " 

Bixiou.  "  Have  you  invented  a  mechanical  corset  or  a 
feeding-bottle,  a  fire-pump  or  pattens,  a  stove  that  gives  heat 
without  fuel,  or  cooks  a  cutlet  with  three  sheets  of  paper  ?  " 

MiNARD  {going).      "  I  shall  keep  my  secret  to  myself." 

Bixiou.  "Ah,  well,  young  Poirct,  junior,  these  gentle- 
men all  understand  me,  you  see  !  " 

PoiRET  {rtiortified).  "  Monsieur  Bixiou,  will  you  do  me  the 
honor  to  descend  to  my  level  just  for  once " 

Bixiou  {winking  at  the  others).  "  By  all  means.  Before 
you  go,  you  may  perhaps  be  glad  to  know  what  you  are " 

PoiRET  {quickly).      "An  honest  man,  sir." 

Bixiou  {shrugging  his  shoulders).  "To  define,  explain, 
explore,  and  analyze  the  employe.     Do  you  know  how?" 

PoiRET.      "  I  think  so." 


440  LES  EMPLOYES. 

Bixiou  {twisting  one  of  Poirei' s  buttons).  "I  most  cer- 
tainly doubt  it." 

PoiRET.  "An  employe  is  a  man  paid  to  work  for  the 
Government." 

Bixiou.     "  Obviously.     Then  a  soldier  is  an  employe?" 

Yox^YTi:  {perplexed).      "Why,  no." 

Bixiou,  "At  any  rate,  he  is  paid  by  the  Government  to 
go  on  guard  and  to  be  passed  in  review.  You  will  tell  me 
that  he  is  too  anxious  to  leave  his  post,  that  he  is  not  long 
enough  at  his  post,  that  he  works  too  hard,  and  touches  metal 
too  seldom  (the  barrel  of  his  gun  always  excepted)." 

PoiRET  {opening  wide  eyes).  "Well,  then,  sir,  an  employe, 
more  strictly  speaking,  is  a  man  who  must  draw  his  salary  if 
he  is  to  live  ;  he  is  not  free  to  leave  his  post,  and  he  can  do 
nothing  but  copy  and  dispatch  documents." 

Bixiou.  "  Ah,  now  we  are  arriving  at  a  solution  !  So  the 
government  office  is  the  employe's  shell  ?  You  cannot  have 
the  one  without  the  other.  Now,  what  are  we  to  say  about 
the  tide-waiter?"  {Poiret  tries  to  stamp  in  vexation  and  es- 
cape;  but  Bixiou,  having  pulled  off  one  button,  holds  him  by 
another.)  "Bah  !  in  the  bureaucratic  world  he  probably  is  a 
neuter.  The  customs-house  official  is  a  semi-employe ;  he  is 
on  the  frontier  just  as  he  is  on  the  borderland  between  the 
civil  service  and  the  army  ;  he  is  not  exactly  a  soldier,  and 
not  precisely  an  employe  either.  But  look  here,  daddy,  where 
are  we  going?"  {twists  the  button.)  "Where  does  the  em- 
ploye end  ?  It  is  an  important  question.  Is  a  prefect  an 
employe  ?  " 

Poiret  {nervously).     "He  is  a  functionary." 

Bixiou,  "Oh!  you  are  coming  to  a  contradiction  in 
terms  !     So  a  functionary  is  not  an  employe  !  " 

Poiret  {looks  round  exhausted).  "  Monsieur  Godard  looks 
as  though  he  had  something  to  say." 

GoDARD.  "The  employe  represents  the  order,  the  func- 
tionary the  genus." 


LES  EMFLOVAs.  441 

Bixiou.      "  Clever  j«^-ordinate  !     I  should  not  have  thought 
you  capable  of  so  ingenious  a  distinction." 

PoiRET.     "  Where  are  wc  going?  " 

Bixiou.  "There,  daddy,  let  us  not  trip  ourselves  up  with 
words.  Listen,  and  wc  shall  come  to  an  understanding  in  the 
end.  Look  here,  we  will  establish  an  axiom,  which  I  be- 
queath to  the  office — The  functionary  begins  where  the  em- 
ploye ends,  and  the  functionary  leaves  off  where  the  statesman 
begins.  There  are  very  few  statesmen,  however,  among  pre- 
fects. So  the  prefect  would  seem  to  be  a  kind  of  neuter 
among  superior  orders  of  being;  he  is  half-way  between  the 
statesman  and  the  employe,  much  as  the  tide-waiter  is  not 
exactly  a  soldier  or  a  civilian,  but  something  of  both.  Let  us 
continue  to  unravel  these  lofty  questions."  {^Poiret  grows  red 
in  the  face^.  "  Can  we  not  state  the  matter  in  a  theorem 
worthy  of  La  Rochefoucauld  ?  When  salaries  reach  the  limit 
line  of  twenty  thousand  francs,  the  employe  ceases.  Hence 
we  may  logically  deduce  the  first  corollary — The  statesman 
reveals  himself  in  the  sphere  of  high  salaries.  Likewise  this 
second  and  no  less  important  corollary — It  is  possible  for  a 
director-general  to  be  a  statesman.  Perhaps  deputies  mean 
something  of  this  kind  when  they  think  within  themselves 
that  '  it  is  a  fine  thing  to  be  a  director-general.'  Still,  in  the 
interests  of  the  French  language  and  the  Academy " 

PoiRET  {completely  fascinated  by  Bixioii  s  fixity  of  gaze). 
"The  French  language  ! — the  Academy  ! " 

Bixiou  (twisting  off  a  second  button,  and  seizing  upon  the  one 
above  it).  "■  Yes,  in  the  interests  of  our  noble  language,  your 
attention  must  be  called  to  the  fact  that  if  a  chief  clerk, 
.strictly  speaking,  may  still  be  an  employe,  a  head  of  the 
division  is  of  necessity  a  bureaucrat.  These  gentlemen  " — 
(turning  to  the  clerks,  and  holding  up  Poire t' s  third  button  for 
their  inspection) — "  these  gentkmen  will  appreciate  all  the 
delicacy  of  that  subtle  shade  of  distinction.  And  so,  Papa 
Poiret,  the  employe  ends  absolutely  at  the  head  of  a  division. 

P 


442  LES  EMPLOYES. 

So  here  is  the  question  settled  once  for  all — there  is  no  more 
doubt  about  it ;  the  employe,  who  might  seem  to  be  inde- 
finable, is  defined." 

PoiRET.      "Beyond  a  doubt,  as  it  seems  to  me." 

Bixiou.  "  And  yet,  be  so  far  my  friend  as  to  solve  me  this 
problem :  A  judge  is  permanently  appointed,  consequently, 
according  to  your  subtle  distinction,  he  cannot  be  a  func- 
tionary ;  and  as  his  salary  and  the  amount  of  work  do  not 
correspond,  ought  he  to  be  included  among  employes?  " 

PoiRET  {gazing  at  the  ceiling).  "-Monsieur,  I  cannot  fol- 
low you  now " 

Bixiou  {nipping  off  a  fourth  button).  "I  wanted  to  show 
you,  monsieur,  in  the  first  place,  that  nothing  is  simple;  but 
more  particularly — and  what  I  am  about  to  remark  is  meant 
for  the  benefit  of  philosophists  (if  you  will  permit  me  to  twist 
a  saying  attributed  to  Louis  XVIII.) — I  wish  to  point  out 
that,  side  by  side  with  the  need  of  a  definition,  lies  the  peril 
of  getting  mixed." 

PoiRET  {wiping  his  forehead).  "I  beg  your  pardon,  mon- 
sieur, I  feel  queasy"  {tries  to  button  his  overcoat).  "Oh! 
you  have  cut  off  all  my  buttons  !  " 

Bixiou.     "  Well,  «(?w  do  you  understand  ?  " 

YoYi(.^T  {vexed).  "  Yes,  sir.  Yes.  I  understand  that  you 
meant  to  play  me  a  very  nasty  trick  by  cutting  off  my  buttons 
while  I  was  not  looking." 

^\y.\o\5  {solemnly).  "Old  man,  you  err.  I  was  trying  to 
engrave  upon  your  mind  as  lively  an  image  of  the  Govern- 
ment as  is  possible  "  {all  eyes  are  turned  on  Bixiou.  Poiret,  in 
his  amazement,  looks  round  at  the  others  with  vague  uneasiness). 
"  That  is  how  I  kept  my  word.  I  took  the  parabolic  method 
known  to  savages.  (Now  listen  /)  While  the  ministers  are 
at  the  Chambers,  starting  discussions  just  about  as  profitable 
and  conclusive  as  ours,  the  Administration  is  cutting  off  the 
taxpayers'  buttons." 

Omnes.     "  Bravo,  Bixiou  !  " 


LES  EMPLOYES.  448 

PoiRET  {as  he  begins  to  comprehend^.  "  I  do  not  grudge  my 
buttons  now." 

Bixiou.  "And  I  shall  do  as  Minard  does.  I  do  not  care 
to  sign  receipts  for  such  trifling  sums  any  longer ;  I  deprive 
the  department  of  my  cooperation"  {goes  out  amid  general 
laughter^. 

Meanwhile  another  and  more  instructive  scene  was  taking 
place  in  the  minister's  reception-room  ;  more  instructive,  be 
it  said,  because  it  may  give  some  idea  of  the  way  in  which 
great  ideas  come  to  nothing  in  lofty  regions,  and  how  the  in- 
habitants thereof  find  consolation  in  misfortune.  At  this  par- 
ticular moment  des  Lupeaulx  was  introducing  M.  Baudoyer, 
the  new  director.  Two  or  three  Ministerialist  deputies  were 
present  beside  M.  Clergeot,  to  whom  his  excellency  gave  as- 
surance of  an  honorable  retiring  pension.  After  various  com- 
monplace remarks,  the  event  of  the  day  came  up  in  conversa- 
tion. 

A  Deputy.     "  So  Rabourdin  has  gone  for  good  ?  " 

Des  Lupeaulx.     "  He  has  sent  in  his  resignation." 

Clergeot.  "He  wanted  to  reform  the  civil  service,  they 
said." 

The  Minister  {looking  at  the  deputies').  **  Perhaps  the 
salaries  are  not  proportionate  to  the  services  required." 

De  la  Bri£re.  "According  to  Monsieur  Rabourdin,  a 
hundred  men,  with  salaries  of  twelve  thousand  francs  apiece, 
will  do  the  same  work  better  and  more  expeditiously  than  a 
thousand  at  twelve  hundred  francs." 

Clergeot.     "  Perhaps  he  is  right." 

The  Minister.  "There  is  no  help  for  it  !  The  machine 
is  made  that  way ;  the  whole  thing  would  have  to  be  taken  to 
pieces  and  reconstructed  \  and  who  would  have  the  courage  to 
do  that  in  front  of  the  tribune  and  under  the  fire  of  stupid 
declamation  from  the  Opposition  or  terrific  articles  in  the 
press?     Still,  some   day  or  other   there  will  be  a  disastrous 


444  LES  EMPLOYES. 

hitch  somewhere  between  the  Government  and  the  Adminis- 
tration." 

The  Deputy.     ''  What  will  happen  ?  " 

The  Minister.  "  Some  minister  will  see  a  good  thing  to 
be  done,  and  will  be  unable  to  do  it.  You  will  have  created 
interminable  delays  between  legislation  and  carrying  the  law 
into  effect.  You  may  make  it  impossible  to  steal  a  five-franc 
piece,  but  you  cannot  prevent  collusion  to  gain  private  ends. 
Some  things  will  never  be  done  until  clandestine  stipulations 
have  been  made,  and  it  is  very  difficult  to  detect  such  things. 
And,  then,  every  man  on  the  staff,  from  the  chief  down  to  the 
lowest  clerk,  will  soon  have  his  own  opinion  on  this  matter 
and  that;  they  will  no  longer  be  hands  directed  by  a  brain, 
they  will  not  carry  out  the  intentions  of  the  Government. 
The  Opposition  is  gradually  giving  them  a  right  to  speak  and 
vote  against  the  Government,  and  to  condemn  it." 

Baudoyer  {in  a  low  voice,  but  not  so  low  as  to  be  inaudible). 
"  His  excellency  is  sublime  !  " 

Des  Lupeaulx.  "  Bureaucracy  certainly  has  its  bad  side; 
it  is  slow  and  insolent,  I  think  ;  it  hampers  the  action  of  the 
department  overmuch  ;  it  snuffs  out  many  a  project ;  it  stops 
progress ;  but,  still,  the  French  administration  is  wonderfully 
useful " 

Baudoyer.     "  Certainly." 

Des  Lupeaulx.  " —  if  only  as  a  support  to  the  trade  in 
stationery  and  stamps.  And  if,  like  many  excellent  house- 
wives, the  civil  service  is  apt  to  be  a  little  bit  fussy,  she  can 
give  an  account  of  her  expenditure  at  any  moment.  Where  is 
the  clever  man  in  business  that  would  not  be  only  too  glad  to 
drop  five  per  cent,  on  his  turnover  if  some  insurance  agent 
would  undertake  to  guarantee  him  against  '  leakage?'  " 

The  Deputy  (a  manufacturer).  "Manufacturers  on  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic  would  be  delighted  to  make  a  bargain 
with  the  imp  known  as  '  leakage  '  on  such  terms  as  those." 

Des  Lupeaulx.     "Well,  statistics  may  be  the  weakness  of 


LES  EMPLOYES.  445 

the  modern  statesman  ;  he  is  apt  to  take  figures  for  calculation, 
but  we  must  use  figures  to  make  calculations ;  therefore,  let  us 
calculate.  If  a  society  is  based  on  money  and  self-interest,  it 
takes  its  stand  on  figures,  and  society  has  been  thus  based  since 
the  Charter*  was  drawn  up ;  so  I  think,  at  least.  And,  then, 
there  is  nothing  like  a  column  of  figures  for  carrying  convic- 
tion to  the  'intelligent  masses.'  Everything,  in  fact,  so  say 
our  statesmen  of  the  Left,  can  be  resolved  into  figures.  So  to 
figures  let  us  betake  ourselves  ' '  {the  minister  takes  one  of  the 
deputies  aside  and  begins  to  talk  in  a  low  voice.)  "Here,  in 
France,  there  are  about  forty  thousand  men  in  the  employ  of 
the  Government ;  not  counting  road-menders,  crossing-sweep- 
ers, and  cigarette-makers.  Fifteen  hundred  francs  is  the 
average  amount  of  a  salary.  Multiply  fifteen  hundred  francs 
by  forty  thousand,  and  you  get  sixty  millions.  And  before 
we  go  any  further,  a  publicist  might  call  the  attention  of 
China,  Austria,  Russia  (where  civil  servants  rob  the  govern- 
ment), and  divers  American  republics  to  the  fact  that  for 
this  sum  France  obtains  the  fussiest,  most  fidgety,  interfering, 
inquisitive,  meddlesome,  painstaking,  categorical  set  of  scrib- 
blers and  hoarders  of  wastepaper,  the  veriest  old  wife  among 
all  known  administrations.  Not  one  sou  can  be  paid  or 
received  in  France  but  a  written  order  must  be  made  out, 
checked  off  by  a  counterfoil,  produced  again  and  again  at 
every  stage  of  the  business,  and  duly  receipted  at  the  end. 
And  afterward  the  demand  and  receipt  must  be  filed,  entered, 
posted,  and  checked  by  a  set  of  men  in  spectacles.  The 
official  understrapper  takes  fright  at  the  least  sign  of  an  infor- 
mality, for  he  lives  by  such  minutice.  Well,  plenty  of  coun- 
tries would  be  satisfied  with  that ;  but  Napoleon  went  further. 
He,  great  organizer  as  he  was,  reestablished  supreme  magis- 
trates   in   one    court,  a    unique    court   in   the   world.     These 

*  The  Charter  here  mentioned  was  the  one  £;ranted  by  Louis  XVIII. 
at  the  time  of  the  Restoration ;  it  also  embraced  the  Code-Napoleon,  but 
slightly  modified. 


446  LES  EMPLOYES. 

functionaries  spent  their  days  in  checking  off  all  the  bills, 
pay-sheets,  muster-rolls,  deposit  certificates,  receipts,  and 
statements  of  expenditure,  and  all  the  files  and  bundles  of 
wastepapcr  which  the  staff  first  covered  with  writing.  Those 
austere  judges  possessed  a  talent  for  minutice,  a  genius  for 
investigation,  and  a  lynx-eyed  perspicacity  in  book-keeping, 
which  reached  such  an  extreme  that  they  went  through  every 
column  of  additions  in  their  quest  of  frauds.  They  were  sub- 
lime martyrs  of  arithmetic ;  they  would  send  back  a  statement 
of  accounts  to  a  superintendent  of  army  stores  because  they  had 
detected  an  error  of  two  centimes  made  two  years  previously. 
So  the  French  administration  is  the  most  incorruptible  service 
that  ever  accumulated  wastepaper  on  the  surface  of  the  globe ; 
theft,  as  his  excellency  observed  just  now,  is  all  but  impossible 
in  France,  and  the  talk  of  malversation  a  figment  of  the  imag- 
ination. 

"Well,  where  is  the  objection?  France  draws  an  annual 
revenue  of  twelve  hundred  millions,  and  she  spends  it ;  that 
is  all.  Twelve  hundred  millions  come  into  her  cash-box,  and 
twelve  hundred  millions  go  out.  She  actually  handles  two 
milliards  four  hundred  millions,  and  only  pays  two  and  a  half 
per  cent,  to  guarantee  herself  against  leakage.     Our  political  \ 

kitchen  account  only  amounts  to  sixty  millions ;  the  gendar-  i 

merie,  the  law-courts,  the  prisons,  and  detectives  cost  us  more 
and  do  nothing  in  return.  And  we  find  employment  for  a 
class  of  men  who  are  fit  for  nothing  else,  you  may  be  very 
sure.  The  waste,  if  waste  there  is,  could  not  be  better  regu- 
lated ;  the  Chambers  are  art  and  part  in  it ;  the  public 
money  is  squandered  in  strictly  legal  fashion.  The  real  leak- 
age consists  in  ordering  public  works  that  are  not  needed,  or 
not  immediately  needed  ;  in  altering  soldiers'  uniforms;  in 
ordering  men-of-war  without  ascertaining  whether  timber  is 
dear  or  not  at  the  time ;  in  unnecessary  preparations  for  war ; 
in  paying  the  debts  of  a  State  without  demanding  repayment 
or  security,  and  so  forth,  and  so  forth." 


t 


LES  EMPLOYES.  447 

Baudoyer.  "But  the  employe  has  nothing  to  do  with 
leakage  in  high  quarters.  Mismanagement  of  national  affairs 
concerns  the  statesman  at  the  helm." 

The  'b^liaiST'E.R  (^his  conversation  being  concluded).  "There 
is  truth  in  what  des  Lupeaulx  was  saying  just  now;  but" 
{turning  to  Baudoyer)  "you  must  bear  in  mind  that  no  one 
is  looking  at  the  matter  from  a  statesman's  point  of  view.  It 
does  not  follow  that  because  such  and  such  a  piece  of  expen- 
diture was  unwise  or  even  useless  that  it  was  a  case  of  mal- 
administration. In  any  case,  it  sets  money  circulating;  and 
in  France,  of  all  countries,  stagnation  in  trade  is  fatal,  be- 
cause the  profoundly  illogical  habit  of  hoarding  coin  is  so 
prevalent  in  the  provinces,  and  so  much  gold  is  kept  out  of 
circulation  as  it  is " 

The  Deputy  {who  has  been  listening  to  des  Lupeaulx.) 
"But  it  seems  to  me  that  if  your  excellency  is  right,  and  if 
our  witty  friend  here  "  {taking  des  Lupeaulx  by  the  arm),  "  if 
our  friend  is  not  wrong,  what  are  we  to  think?  " 

Des  Lupeaulx  {after  exchanging  a  glance  with  the  minister). 
"Something  must  be  done,  no  doubt." 

De  la  Briere  {diffidently).  "  Then  Monsieur  Rabourdin 
is  right?" 

The  Minister.      "  I  am  going  to  see  Rabourdin." 

Des  Lupeaulx.  "  Tlie  poor  man  was  so  misguided  as  to 
constitute  himself  supreme  judge  of  the  administration  and 
the  staff;  he  wants  to  have  no  more  than  three  departments 
in  the  service." 

The  Minister  {interrupting).  "Why,  the  man  is  evi- 
dently mad  !  " 

The  Deputy.  "  How  is  he  going  to  represent  the  different 
parties  in  the  Chamber?" 

Baudoyer  {with  an  air  that  is  meant  to  be  knowing).  "  Per- 
haps, at  the  same  time  Monsieur  Rabourdin  is  changing  the 
Constitution  of  this  great  country  which  we  owe  to  the  King- 
Legislator." 


445  LES  EMPLOYES. 

The  Minister  (^growing  thoughtful,  takes  de  la  Bri'ere  by 
the  arm  and  steps  aside).  "  I  should  like  to  look  at  Rabour- 
din's  scheme ;  and  since  you  know  about  it " 

De  la  Briere  {in  the  cabinet).  "  He  has  burnt  it  all. 
You  allowed  him  to  be  dishonored ;  he  has  resigned.  You 
must  not  suppose,  my  lord,  that  he  entertained  the  preposter- 
ous idea,  attributed  to  him  by  des  Lupeaulx,  of  making  any 
change  in  the  admirable  centralization  of  authority." 

The  Minister  {to  himself).  "I  have  made  a  mistake." 
{A  moment' s  pause).  "  Bah  !  there  will  never  be  any  scarcity 
of  schemes  of  reform " 

Da  la  Briere.  "We  have  ideas  in  plenty;  we  lack  the 
men  that  can  carry  them  out." 

Just  then  Lupeaulx,  insinuating  advocate  of  abuses,  entered 
the  cabinet. 

"  I  am  going  down  to  address  my  constituents,  your  excel- 
lency." 

"Wait!"  returned  his  excellency,  and,  turning  from  his 
private  secretary,  he  drew  des  Lupeaulx  to  a  window.  "  Give 
up  that  arrondissement  to  me,  my  dear  fellow  ;  you  shall  have 
the  title  of  count,  and  I  will  pay  your  debts.  And — and  if  I 
am  still  in  office  after  next  election,  I  will  find  a  way  of  put- 
ting you  in  with  a  batch  of  other  personages  to  be  made  a 
peer  of  France." 

"  You  are  a  man  of  honor;  I  accept." 

And  so  it  came  to  pass  that  Clement  Chardin  des  Lupeaulx, 
whose  father  was  ennobled  by  Louis  XV.,  and  bore  quarterly  ; 
of  the  first,  argent,  a  wolf  sable,  ravissant,  carrying  a  lamb, 
gules  ;  of  the  second,  purpjir,  three  buckles  argent,  two  and  one  ; 
of  the  third,  barry  of  six,  gules  and  argent ;  of  the  fourth, 
gules,  a  caduceus  7vinged  and  wreathed  with  serpents,  vert ; 
with  four  griffins'  claws  for  supporters ;  and  en  lupus  in 
historia  for  a  motto,  managed  to  surmount  his  half-burlesque 
escutcheon  with  a  count's  coronet. 


LES  EMPLOYES.  449 

Toward  the  end  of  December,  1S30,  business  brought  Ra- 
bourdin  back  to  his  old  office.  The  whole  department  had 
been  shaken  by  changes  from  top  to  bottom  ;  and  the  revolu- 
tion affected  the  messengers  more  than  anybody  else — they  are 
never  very  fond  of  new  faces.  Knowing  all  the  people  in  the 
place,  Rabourdin  had  come  early  in  the  morning,  and  so 
chanced  to  overhear  a  conversation  between  Laurent's  nephews, 
for  Antoinc  had  been  pensioned. 

■'  Well,  how  is  your  chief?  " 

"  Don't  speak  of  him  ;  I  can  make  nothing  of  him.  He 
rings  to  ask  whether  I  have  seen  his  pocket-handkerchief  or 
his  snuff-box.  He  does  not  keep  people  waiting,  but  has 
them  shown  in  at  once  ;  he  has  not  the  least  dignity,  in  fact. 
I  myself  am  obliged  to  say  :  *  Why,  sir,  the  count,  your  pred- 
ecessor, in  the  interests  of  authority,  used  to  whittle  his  arm- 
chair with  a  penknife  to  make  people  believe  that  he  worked.' 
In  short,  he  makes  a  regular  muddle  of  it ;  the  place  does  not 
know  itself,  to  my  thinking  ;  he  is  a  very  poor  creature. 
How  is  yours  ? ' ' 

"Mine?  Oh,  I  have  trained  him  at  last;  he  knows 
where  his  paper  and  envelopes  are  kept,  and  where  the 
firewood  is,  and  all  his  things.  My  other  used  to  swear  ; 
this  one  is  good-tempered.  But  he  is  not  the  big  style  of 
thing  ;  he  has  no  order  at  his  button-hole.  I  like  a  chief  to 
have  an  order  ;  if  he  hasn't,  they  may  take  him  for  one  of  us, 
and  that  is  so  mortifying.  He  takes  home  office  stationery, 
and  asked  me  if  I  could  go  to  his  house  to  wait  at  evening 
parties." 

"  Ah  !  what  a  Government,  my  dear  fellow." 

"  Yes,  a  set  of  swindlers." 

"  1  wish  they  may  not  nibble  at  our  poor  salaries." 

"  I  am  afraid  they  will.  The  Chambers  keep  a  sharp  look- 
out on  you.     Tlicy  haggle  over  the  firewood." 

''Oh,  well,  if  that  is  the  style  of  them,  it  will  not  last 
long." 

"  Wc  are  in  for  it !     Somebody  is  listening," 
29 


450 


LES  EMPLOYES. 


\ 


"  Oh  !  it  is  Monsieur  Rabourdin  that  used  to  be.  Ah  !  sir, 
I  knew  you  by  your  way  of  coming  in.  If  you  want  any- 
thing here,  there  is  nobody  that  will  know  the  respect  that  is 
owing  to  you  ;  there  is  nobody  of  your  time  left  now  but  us. 
Monsieur  Colleville  and  Monsieur  Baudoyer  did  not  wear  out 
the  leather  on  their  chairs  after  you  went.  Lord  !  six  months 
afterward  they  got  appointments  as  receivers  of  taxes  at 
Paris." 

Paris,  y«/F,  1836. 


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